Quotes About Behavior

For God's sake, stop sniffing me," she gritted. "It is rude.

In the midst of a crowd, an individual's layers of restraint peel away, revealing potentially barbaric instincts and a susceptibility to a "crowd contagion.

Teenage drinking has been declining since 1999, but students vastly overestimate their classmates' use of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. For example, a study conducted at a Midwestern high school when teenage alcohol use was peaking found that students believed that 92% of their peers Frank alcohol and 85% smoked cigarettes. When researchers surveyed the school to unearth the actual statistics, they learned that 47% of students had consumed alcohol and 17% smoked.

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

It is patent that any group [believing itself to be] surrounded by a world of unbending and irreconcilable foes would see the abyss between itself and them as one that could be spanned by no tie or social obligation. Within such a group, the lie—as told to the "others"—would be neither an act merely tolerated nor a simple rule of social behavior; it would become obligatory and be transformed into a virtue.

My paper was a direct discussion and comparison of half-a-dozen ethical systems, concentrating on what seemed to me to be their flaws. I finished by saying that it struck me that all the ethical systems I was discussing were after the fact. That is, that people act as they are disposed to, but they like to feel afterwards that they were *right* and so they invent systems that approve of their dispositions

I do think the heart can balance out the mind, if your heart is in a good place it can give you the strength to do the right thing and behave the right way and overcome the mind.

Les lois des relations humaines nous sont encore inconnues. La sociologie et l'économie politique ne sont que des sciences conjecturales, des pseudo-sciences.

The love of wealth is therefore to be traced, as either a principal or accessory motive, at the bottom of all that the Americans do; this gives to all their passions a sort of family likeness.

Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all.

Students get the message bout what adults want. When 4th graders in a variety of classroomswere asked what their teachers most wanted them to do, they didn't say, "Ask thoughtful questions" or "Make responsible decisions" or Help others." They said, "Be quiet, don't fool around, and get our work done on time.

Few readers will be shocked by the news that extrinsic motivators are a poor substitute for genuine interest in what one is doing. What is likely to be far more surprising and disturbing is the further point that rewards, like punishments, actually undermine the intrinsic motivation that promotes optimal performance.

the question is not whether more flies can be caught with honey than with vinegar, but why the flies are being caught in either case—and how this feels to the fly.

I realized that this is what many people in our society seem to want most from children: not that they are caring or creative or curious, but simply that they are well behaved. A "good" child—from infancy to adolescence—is one who isn't too much trouble to us grown-ups.

Instead, you would probably hear, "No rewards and punishments?? Then how will we get our kids to do what they're told, follow the rules, and take their place in a society where certain things will be expected of them whether they like it or not?" Indeed, there is evidence that greater concern about social

As it happens, most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain.

Rewards usually improve performance only at extremely simple—indeed, mindless—tasks, and even then they improve only quantitative performance.

As it happens, most studies have found that unexpected rewards are much less destructive than the rewards people are told about beforehand and are deliberately trying to obtain. But

Are we encouraging him to make his own judgments about what constitutes a good performance (or a desirable action) ? Are we contributing to, or at least preserving, his ability to choose what kind of person to be? Or are we attempting to manipulate his behavior by getting him to think about whether he has met our criteria? The

Norman Kunc, who conducts workshops on inclusive education and non-coercive practices, points out that "what we call 'behavior problems' are often situations of legitimate conflict; we just get to call them behavior problems because we have more power" than children do. (You're not allowed to say that your spouse has a behavior problem.)

Some parents withdraw their love by simply refusing to respond to a child—that is, by making a point of ignoring him. They may not say it out loud, but the message they're sending is pretty clear: "If you do things I don't like, I won't pay any attention to you. I'll pretend you're not even here. If you want me to acknowledge you again, you'd better obey me.

what actually stood between the carrot and the stick was, of course, a jackass.

When we repeatedly promise rewards to children for acting responsibly, or to students for making an effort to learn something new, or to employees for doing quality work, we are assuming that they could not or would not choose to act this way on their own.

the use of rewards for reading, writing, drawing, acting responsibly and generously, and so on is cause for concern, not only because these things could be intrinsically motivating but because we want to encourage rather than extinguish that motivation.