It may just be that I am becoming a grumpy
old man but the idea of accountability seems to have disappeared from modern
life. Perhaps told age has eroded my tolerance to the thinness of a battery egg
shell, like Clint Eastwood in that
wonderful movie Gran Torino.
The recent incident involving Kurtly Beale
has brought this into sharp focus for me and I’ve been grappling with notions
of values and personal responsibility for a week or so now. Like others, I am
just gobsmacked that Australian Rugby would allow Beale back into the
Australian side at all, let alone so quickly, after his atrocious behavior.
Sending a disgusting and denigrating text to a work colleague would result in
instant dismissal in any workplace with no parole. Not only did Beale get
parole, it was cynically foreshortened. So, off goes Beale for a European
holiday.
It hardly needs me to point out the message
that this sends, especially young people, about values, about the
way we can treat other people. It appears that it’s is OK to abuse someone in a
way that is likely to damage them irreparably. That he is a man abusing a woman
is an even more terrible reflection of our societal values, given he has been
reprieved from all responsibility. The fact he copped a fine misses the point
completely. In any case, $45,000 is nothing for a man of his financial status.
One of the topics covered in psychology 101
is the shaping of human behavior, how we learn. It is a terribly complex
process but one of the simplest ways we learn is by understanding consequences.
If your behavior is rewarded, or you see others rewarded for their behavior,
then you are more likely to repeat that behaviour If reward is removed then a behaviour will be avoided of can be extinguished. We learn that there are consequences for what we
do. One of the most powerful ways we learn is through the approval or
disapproval of those people who are significant to us.
In this way we find out about what’s right
and what’s wrong. If it all works out well we learn what it takes to live in
harmony with other people, we find that empathy for others is a valuable tool
in relationships, that caring is nice. Of course there is that 2 or 3 percent
of people that never get it and turn out to be psychopaths. The rest of us are
shaped by the ways others respond to us and how we feel about what we are
doing.
Vicarious learning is responsible for
shaping a lot of our behavior. We learn by watching others and how they get
along when they do something. Again, it is usually most powerful when it
involves people we are close to or admire. Parents are obviously big
determinants of behavior in their children. But, other relatives, work
colleagues, bosses, friends and, yes, celebrities can model our behavior too.
Before the next bit let me be clear that
physical or other abusive forms of punishment are very poor at shaping
behavior, at least in the long term. You’ll get compliance but not a change in
behavior or attitude. All we do when we do this is teach someone to be
similarly violent or abusive. If you don’t want to believe me then please look
at the evidence. It is overwhelming that physical punishment is not a deterrent
or a game changer.
But, consequences are critical. I have seen
many parents shake their heads at the selfish antics of their children, people
look totally confused when their partner leaves them, be angry at their
inability to get a promotion, or depressed that no-one seems to like them. Many
of them failed to understand the consequences of not understanding consequences.
It’s the same in workplaces. Even in this
age of apparent enlightenment we see bullying behavior such as that exhibited
by Beale. In many cases the consequences are minimal, if there any at all.
Bullying remains a critical issue in many organisations. But also endemic are
failures of leadership, a failure to live up to common values such as honesty
and integrity, and lack of engagement. Similarly, we endorse the vapid behavior
of our politicians, their dishonesty, their self-interest, their disingenuousness.
Our news media has become morally bankrupt, controlled as they are by
self-interest. The truth is a leaf on the wind.
Our silences, our lack of outrage, is
deafening and it provides the endorsement, the consequences of bad behavior.
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