The Definition of Insanity

You know it, I know you do; something along the lines of “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.” Some people call it Einstein Insanity, since he’s the genius usually credited with saying it.

It is an interesting phenomenon, I have to admit. I’m guilty of it on occasion, and I feel sure you are too. That moment when you think, “What the heck am I doing???” Yeah. Sorta humbling (and embarrassing) and infuriating, all at the same time.

When systems do it, it really drives me crazy. This has been on my mind a lot this week as I’m brushing up on research about motivation. One of the resources that resonates with me is Daniel Pink’s book, Drive. There are so many jewels in this book about what motivates people that all I can say is: must read.

One of the areas Pink’s research looks at is the concept of “sticks and carrots.” You know, offering rewards when someone does what you want and punishing when they don’t. The research presented speaks volumes to me about our current criminal justice system and how we approach behaviors in carceral spaces (and classrooms any where, really). It’s consistent with what we know about Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, and with raising our own children, managing staff, etc…Reward and punishment have limited effects on long-term behavior modification if not accompanied by intrinsic motivation. Pink lists autonomy, mastery, and purpose as being key to motivation (either self or organizational). I can’t summarize the research done adequately, so to do it justice: must read.

But a word about the use of the stick in relation to Einstein Insanity…as a criminal justice system, we continuously subscribe to the idea that “tougher on crime” sentencing and harsher punishments inside prisons are going to somehow end crime, or somehow lessen it, or change criminogenic or anti-social behaviors. How’s that working so far? We’ve been waging a war on drugs since the Nixon administration, mostly making increasingly more punitive sentencing legislation, and have we won the war on drugs? We have not. We are seeing some reform of laws like mandatory minimum sentencing and “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” thinking, and I do see many more efforts to focus on rehabilitation than on punishment inside our carceral institutions than say, 20 years ago, but whenever I see or hear the same old arguments that we’ve heard over the past 6 decades, it makes me tired.

I’m not a criminal justice reform expert, but I have a lot of experience in creating opportunities for people to experience intrinsic motivation. Mainly, it’s about creating environments that give them (you guessed it) autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In using PBIS in public and carceral educational systems, we always start off with incentivizing behaviors we want to see instead of focusing on punishing the ones we don’t want to see. We introduce natural and logical consequences instead of punishment, and we decrease incentives gradually so that eventually, no one expects a reward and instead of working for the incentive, they work because they have agency to work the way they work best, on tasks that have meaning, and for results that have purpose. It sounds too simple to work, but it does.

If what we’re doing isn’t getting the results we want, why not change and try something different? We have some inherent idea, it seems, that carrying a big stick is going to get us to the end result, and when it fails, we just look around for a bigger one. Maybe the biggest stick should be taken to old ideas that don’t work. That’s a use of a stick I can get behind.

Enjoy your rejuvenating beverage this fine Sunday morning. I hope you’re mentally testing every instance of Einstein Insanity you can think of. Or just taking some peaceful deep breaths. You can change the world after that.

Tallyho!