Punishment emotions

Table 2. Some emotions that accompany activity in reward and punishment systems...

Pain and fear of pain are perhaps the most powerful of aversive stimuli and the most immediately important for survival since they carry the threat of tissue damage. Melzack and Wall (1988) described three components of pain sensory-discriminative from peripheral nociceptors, emotional or motivational-affective, involving limbic system punishment pathways, and rational or cognitive-evaluative derived from cerebral cortex. Excitatory and inhibitory feed-back systems link all components. 

In most humans in most contemporary societies, the quick and dirty path is relatively unimportant. Success and survival do not turn heavily on split-second decisions. Instead, decisions and the concomitant emotions depend crucially on prior cognitive processing of the situation. In animals other than humans, it is often difficult to decide whether what looks like an emotional reaction is triggered by a mental representation of the situation or whether it is merely a learned response. The apparent guilt of the dog that has shredded the newspaper in its owner s absence may simply be a conditioned fear of punishment, since the same response is produced when the owner himself shreds the newspaper and leaves it on the floor (Vollmer 1977). 

It is hard to believe that one could have a severed biceps muscle and not notice it, but when fighters are pumped up they can take inordinate punishment without pain. The arousal system that normally keeps us awake keeps us ultra-awake when we are after someone or when someone is after us. This hyperarousal can be associated with elation if we are the predator or with fear if we are the prey. In the heat of battle either of these emotions can be exchanged for the other, or mixed, or be accompanied by rage, depending on the strategy we adopt. 

The parent-child model says that discipline equals punishment. The adult-adult model says that discipline equals structure. In a parent-child model, both the parent and the child react in an emotional manner. The parent says, I set the rules or Because I say so. This engenders finger-wagging and a you-have-been-bad affifude. The child then responds with I am not responsible, Tell me exactly. .., It is not fair, or Why do I have to ... 

Third, ordinary hypnotists cannot use force to persuade their subjects to cooperate in the process of being hypnotized. Indeed, it would be counterproductive in the usual setting. Cultural hypnotists, on the contrary, can use physical threats as needed, and actualize them with slaps, spankings, beatings, revocation of privileges, or confiscation of toys, when necessary. The fear of punishment and pain on the subject s part makes him very attentive to the desires of the cultural hypnotists and quick to act in the desired way. Since the easiest way to act in the culturally approved way is to feel that way inside, the fear of punishment helps structure internal mental and emotional processes in culturally approved ways. 

Emotions may affect emotions and, through them, beliefs and, through them, emotions and, through them, behavior in one of the ways already mentioned. Example Envy causes shame which induces a belief that the situation is one that justifies righteous indignation and subsequent punishment of the target person (see Fig. II. 1). 

Bazelon asserts that he and his like-minded colleagues in law and psychiatry are all troubled by punishing people who suffer from mental and emotional disorders. This is pure rhetoric. If it were true, they would have to advocate the abolition of involuntary mental hospitalization to the subject, who can be the only arbiter in this matter, such confinement is a form of punishment. But they do nothing of the sort. On the contrary, they assiduously manufacture more and more madmen by shifting more and more individuals from prisons, where they serve determinate sentences, to mental hospitals, where they serve indeterminate ones. 

One of the biggest obstacles to reporting a safety issue is that the employee is punished, which is a knee-jerk reaction deeply embedded in safety cultures. The excuse here is Well, I would rather discipline him than have to visit him in the hospital. After an accident people become very emotional, and line management automatically look for who caused the accident rather than what caused the accident. 

Although relatively few studies have focused on nurses or other professions, studies that do exist suggest that nurses also suffer similarly in the aftermath of errors. Not surprisingly they experience the same basic human responses of shame, guilt and anxiety about the consequences. In one study on medication error, nurses were more likely than doctors or pharmacists to report strong emotional responses to making an error and fear of disciplinary aaion or punishment (Wolf et ai, 2000 White et ai, 2008), which perhaps reflects the different disciplinary culture of nursing. 

Many of the doctors interviewed in these various studies had not discussed the mistakes or their emotional impact with colleagues. Shame, fears of humiliation, fear of punishment and all acted to deter open discussion and isolate people from their colleagues. When the case was discussed, it would be with close friends or colleagues whom they had come to trust over a long period. The doctors involved wanted the emotional support and professional reaffirmation, but their culture did not often permit such open discussions (Christensen, Levinson and Dunn, 1992 Newman, 1996). 

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