Category: ACADEMIA

I.

A behavioral perspective is interested in explaining behavior by observing the interactions between an agent and its environment.

Unlike other perspectives that try to explain human behavior by resorting to intrapsychic and cognitive subsystems, personality traits, and neuroscience, a behavioral perspective is focused on action – what people do when they interact with each other and the environment.

II.

Unless you are a neuroscientist or a brain surgeon, you’re not going to get access to a person’s brain every time you want understand their behavior. Besides, the only way you can be aware of a person’s personality or cognitive disposition is by observing their actions. This is even more apparent in our age of big data where companies are able to send you tailor-made content and ads by simply understanding the pattern of your actions on their sites over time.

Its focus on action is exactly what makes a behavioral perspective appealing. Some events in the environment incentivize action, making certain kinds of behavior more likely to happen. Other events in the environment disincentivize action, reducing the chances of other kinds of behavior happening. By focusing on how the presence or absence of incentives and disincentives influences action, we have a potentially fruitful way to understand the root causes of behavior.

III.

Behavior always entails the passage of time and the expenditure of effort. For a pattern of behavior to continue, the time and effort involved in it must either help you attain pleasure and satisfaction, or help you stop and avoid pain. Conversely, to reduce the chances of a behavioral pattern playing out, engaging in it must be painful, while not engaging in it will at least stop the pain – even if this experience is not particularly pleasurable.

Problems arise when an individual spending time and effort in a particular type of behavior is never certain that he will either be rewarded with pleasure and satisfaction or punished with pain.

IV.

Consider the example of people driving in a busy city. There are white lines on the road, marking the different traffic lanes. The red, amber and green lights controlling the flow of traffic are also in excellent condition.

In some regions in the world, a driver can be confident that as long as he spends his time and effort engaged in keeping his car in his lane, he will escape a disincentive in the form of a fine, or even worse, a car accident. The driver is certain that as long as he drives when the traffic light facing him is green, other drivers are seeing red and he will pass the intersection safely. In short, the conditions where incentives and disincentives can be accessed are predictable.

This is not the case in other parts of the world. You may get into a car accident even if you’re staying in your lane and driving at the speed limit. When you encounter a green light at an intersection, you cannot be sure that the other drivers seeing red would stop. As it turns out, it is difficult to differentiate between the situations where incentives will be delivered and the occasions where disincentives will be delivered.

V.

The earlier example involving driving in a city translates easily to economic conditions. Consider taxes, for instance. In some regions of the world, if you are below a certain income level, you’re incentivized to pay taxes because you get a a tax refund from the government. Thus, even though you have a low income, and paying taxes feels like a further reduction in your income, you still have an incentive to pay your taxes. Why? Because you can count on the government giving you a refund if you are below an income threshold. Similarly, the wealthy are incentivized to pay their taxes when the government establishes the physical and legal infrastructure that allows businesses to thrive – enriching both the pockets of the wealthy and the lived experiences of the masses. Again, this plays out because of how predictable the incentives are. All these translates easily translates into socioeconomic development.

Although, I’m not the best writer, one thing I’ve noticed is that very few people vomit thousands of words into a word processor in one sitting. The more you read the literature within and outside your field, the more you’d realize the following:

– Many writeups have a central argument that can usually be stated in a few sentences, or one page at most.

– The art of writing simply involves finding and articulating that central argument. After this has been done, your core sentences are hedged/supported by other arguments, which in turn may be supported by other arguments.

– Your job as a writer, especially in the beginning, is to assemble evidence for your argument. This means that you rarely have to start your article from the scratch. If you’ve been a diligent student in your field, you will always know the foundational literature in your field that you can start building from.

– Finally, many stellar writers invest a lot of time editing. Venkatesh Rao, one of my writing models, would argue that for excellent writers, the ratio between actual writing and rewrites is probably about 10:90. If you feel like you’re an untalented writer, your goal is to “out-edit and out-rewrite” everyone else. The beauty of most writing you see truly comes out during the rewrites. Write. Let what you’ve written breathe a bit. Edit. Rewrite. Write again. Let it breathe. Iterate.