Most people have a good idea what corporal punishment means in plain English, but behaviorists like to use words precisely.  Punishment, to a behaviorist, is something that happens following a behavior that reduces the likelihood that the behavior will occur again.  Punishment comes in two main flavors: positive and negative.  Positive punishment is when you add something to a situation, like a slap on the butt, an electric shock or a spray of a noxious substance on someone’s face.  Negative punishment is when you take something away, like a favorite toy, a trip to Disneyland, or the cell phone your wife was using to text the pool guy.  It is considered punishment as long as it reduces the behavior that came before it.

Corporal of course means having to do with one’s corpus, or body, so by definition when most people think about corporal punishment they are thinking about the positive kind, at least in behavioral terms.  Positive and negative have always been tricky words in behaviorism, because they don’t translate well into common parlance; most non-behaviorists like to think of corporal punishment as negative and taking bad things away from people who misuse them as acceptable, if not positive.   I am sure I am not alone in thinking that behaviorists long ago should have substituted the words “additive” and “subtractive” for positive and negative, but it is too late and too far into the game.

Two corporal punishment incidents in which I was personally involved occurred when I was in college and when I was in my late forties and taking flying lessons.   The flying incident occurred when my septuagenarian instructor slapped my hand sharply as I reached for the mixture control instead of the carburetor heat in a little Cessna 150.  We were on the deadly base-to-final turn in the pattern and a power reduction at that altitude and in that attitude could have led to the infamous “graveyard spiral.”  “You could have killed us,” he said after the slap.  He was absolutely right, and I thought twice whenever I reached for the mixture control.

When I was in college my fencing instructor, sans helmet, was demonstrating to each of us a particular technique that required our foils extended toward his face.  “Whatever you do, don’t lunge at me,” he warned.  When he reached me, I extended my weapon and instinctively started to lunge.   Before I knew it, he whipped the side of my knee over my pants with his foil, which stung like hell and left a welt that lasted a week.  Without his helmet on, I inadvertently could have taken out an eye or ruptured his carotid, and frankly I deserved the punishment.

I can think of a couple more instances of corporal punishment I endured, and I don’t believe I was worse for the wear.  Research tells us that the improvements in kids’ behavior following “positive punishment” tend to be short-lived and have some adverse side effects (such as teaching them to be physically aggressive), so before you post angry and misguided comments, please note that I am not a fan of corporal punishment as a disciplinary method for children.   In fact, perhaps one reason it might have been effective for me as an adult is that I wasn’t immunized against it as a child (although threatened with the belt on many occasions, it was never used).  Also, injuries were minor (the bruises were chiefly to my ego), and my behavior, though not intended to hurt anyone, rationally warranted the punishment.   The fact that both instances mentioned above could simply have been designed to save the lives of the punishers is not lost on me, but that doesn’t mean that I did not reap some benefit.