The Problem With ‘Penalty Reps’ (Is All To Do With Skinner’s Operant Conditioning)

I’m going to give you a phrase and I want to you to consider what images come to mind. Here’s the phrase:

“Drop and give me twenty!”

Thinking about push ups? Or some kind of similar physical training drill? Yeah that’s what wordreference.com came back with and it’s a popular idea. Typically thought of with the military, the idea is simple: if you cannot complete the exercise, you are ‘punished’ (compared to others in the group) with a series of reps of any particular exercise.

There are many merits to this approach but there are many drawbacks too. If we consider that this practice – something I’m going to refer to as ‘Penalty Reps’ for this article – has also found it’s way into some coaching practice, I felt it was worth considering a little deeper. I’m not going so far as to label this ‘bad practice’ but it has never sat comfortably with me and after pondering for years, I think I may have finally been able to figure it all out.

And it’s all to do with a famed American psychologist from the 20th Century.

What Are ‘Penalty Reps’?

Let’s start off explaining what I mean by ‘Penalty Reps’. There’s not really a term for this but I’m sure you’ll recognise the practice; either from popular culture or from first hand experience.

Imagine a group of people (usually children but not always) are given a physical task. If they complete the task, great! Well done, you’ve done exactly what you’ve been asked to. But if you fail, I’m going to ask you to do a number of reps of some other sort of exercise.

Typically, the other exercise would be press ups but it could be anything. Chances are, though, that any exercise chosen will not be a desirable one. I mean, if the ‘penalty’ is more appealing than the activity, it doesn’t exactly encourage participation in the original activity! Hence the term ‘Penalty Reps’.

Now there’s much we can read into this. This is where Skinner comes in.

Making ‘training’ the Punishment

American 20th Century psychologist B.F. Skinner was known for many theories and explanations of human behaviour. While he’s best known for developing the theory of ‘behaviourism’, we’re going to focus on one of his most famous theories: Operant Conditioning.

The website Simply Psychology describes operant conditioning beautifully as “a learning process that modifies behavior through reinforcement and punishment”. It’s kind of similar to the famous Pavlov’s Dog experiment that is commonly cited; the difference being that Pavlov was using something called ‘Classical Conditioning’ which leads to involuntary responses while Skinner’s ‘Operant Conditioning’ involves voluntary behaviours. In other words, with Classical Conditioning, the stimulus comes before the response but with Operant Conditioning, the consequence happens after the behaviour.

These consequences can be either positive or negative. Ever heard of positive reinforcement? Yeah, this is where that comes from. Only it’s often misunderstood and conflated. It’s best described in the form of a good old diagram:

The problem with Operant Conditioning is that it can be incredibly difficult to figure out which category any action fits. I spent ages getting my head around this so think of it this way:

• If we add something, it is ‘positive’
• If we remove something, it is ‘negative’
• If our action encourages the behaviour, it is ‘reinforcement’
• If our action discourages the behaviour, it is ‘punishment’

‘Penalty Reps’, or the idea of introducing something negative to discourage behaviour, is clearly a positive punishment. If you fail at the task, you have to do something (positive) undesireable (punishment).

In the case of Penalty Reps, the activities usually used tend to be training exercises. They are simple and straighforward to complete, usually only involving effort rather than technical skill.

Therefore, the question becomes: are we using training as a punishment? And if that is the case, are we naturally making ‘training’ the bad guy? As in, wouldn’t this discourage training as an activity in it’s own right, if seen as a punishment?

While it would be a bit of a leap to suggest this would happen every time, it is perfectly possible that someone may end up associating press ups with something that only happens when we fail; that press ups might be associated with being penalised. It’s quite a clear potential association someone may make.

It could be argued that completing physical training will only strengthen the participant but then there is the timing. Physical training is rarely best done when fatigued. On it’s simplest level, we may be struggling with a task because we are too tired; either physically or mentally. The last thing we want to do in this scenario is make them more tired with more effort exerted! If this is the case, completing physical training when too tired to continue does not necessarily seem like the wisest idea, (unless carefully tailored in order to induce the right level of fatigue).

Some Considerations

There are some sizable considerations that we should take into account at this point. First a couple of slightly academic points:

• We are specifically considering ‘failure in the exercise’ as a behavioural trait here. The behaviour in question may be effort or it may be concentration but we are making the assumption that the person in question IS capable of completing the task from a strength or technical standpoint.
• From a ‘learning theory’ point of view, we are definitely taking a behaviourist approach. If we looked at this from a different approach (constructivist, ecological dynamics, etc) then we might reach very different conclusions. But this approach has worked well for this analysis

So What’s the Answer?

Honestly this is where I got stuck. I had to draft in my Psychology BSc holding wife, and a couple of her alumni friends, into the conversation as I got more and more baffled.

There are some bigger considerations, with significant implications before we can make sense of this whole process:

• Firstly, let’s assume the notion that we cannot take anything away from the person completing the activity. Therefore, any action we take must be positive
• If we add something that the person likes, it is inherently positive. That means that we are reinforcing the behaviour i.e. encouraging this behaviour to fail
• If we add something perceived as unpleasant, it is inherently negative. This will then discourage the behaviour i.e. don’t fail in order to avoid the consequence. BUT whatever we add may then carry negative connotations in the future.

In short, the ONLY option we have, from an Operant Conditioning point of view, is to either reinforce failure as a behaviour OR demonise something else as a punishment.

So don’t use Operant Conditioning to elicit behavioural change in this setting.

And therein is about the only acceptable conclusion I could come to. My original thought was to replace Penalty Reps with Recovery Drinks but the more I thought of it, the more I realised this would lead to the same problems outlined about: either making failure acceptable in order to have a nice drink or demonising hydration.

But one thing with behaviour is that it tends to happen in context. Context, encompassing the environment, social setting, past experiences, and even the individual’s mood, significantly influences how a behavior is expressed and interpreted. A behavior that is appropriate in one context might be entirely inappropriate in another.

Therefore the answer becomes quite simple: at the point of failure, change to a different Learning Theory by stopping the activity for a short time. Change location, begin a reflective session and use this opportunity to allow for physical recovery with a drink, snack or simply a rest. Then we can switch to alternatives such as Observational/Social Learning Theory or Cognitive Learning Theory. [We’ll cover these more in a later article]

Conclusion

Using Penalty Reps – a series of exercises completed after failure at an activity – may seem like a neat way of sneaking in some extra physical training but it may have unintended consequences.

Assuming the participant is physically and technically capable of completing the activity, adding in Penalty Reps may been seen (either by us or by them) as a form of punishment; something done to alter their behaviour. From Skinner’s Operant Conditioning, it may be classed as ‘Positive Punishment’ and that may not be what we really want to achieve.

First off, whatever activity is chosen as the Penalty may then be viewed as a punishment and therefore, not something they will particularly want to do again in isolation. If it is a physical exercise, completing the Penalty after fatigue (phsyical or mental) may not be the best timing either.

The problem is that to add in anything after failure becomes problematic. Adding in something negative may demonise whatever you’ve added, adding in something positive may inadvertantly encourage failure.

Perhaps a better alternative may be to simply end the activity, even briefly, move to a different location and reflect on performance; tapping in to the classic Plan-Do-Review cycle. Breaking the Operant Conditioning cycle seems to be the best action, on paper at least, and a good opportunity to reinforce other behaviours ready for another effort.

A Brief Disclaimer

One quick thought to mention is that I am certainly not saying that ‘Penalty Reps’ are something that should always be avoided. It would be remiss of me to pass judgement on any session I’ve not observed personally; there are far too many nuances involved for me to suggest, from my keyboard, that you should never take this approach.

Many people still do and it often works for them. If you are one of them, kudos to you. If you wish to continue, I’m certainly not trying to stand in your way.

However, those I am speaking to are those that use the practice of Penalty Reps out of habit. Those that have picked up this practice from somewhere, copied it and never really considered it. What I have tried to do is offer some science behind it, asked you to consider the efficacy of ‘Penalty Reps’ and question whether there is a better way.

Hopefully, this has provided some food for thought. I hope it’s proven useful for you.