A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “reinforcement”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott Alexander examines the Buddhist concept of jhana, a blissful meditative state, through Nick Cammarata's experiences, exploring its implications for understanding pleasure and reinforcement.
Scott Alexander critically examines the concept of self-conditioning, expressing skepticism while considering potential benefits and deciding to experiment with the technique.
Scott presents a framework of 'liking,' 'wanting,' and 'approving' to explain behavior, then shows how people use low-effort approving-influenced actions (like making public commitments) to influence harder behaviors through strategic self-manipulation.
Scott explains how thoughts and intentions are reinforced separately from actions, using B.F. Skinner's concept of "mental behavior" to show why people often intend to do things but never actually do them.
Scott explains how reinforcement learning concepts like secondary reinforcers, generalization, and social learning apply to human behavior, while acknowledging these mechanisms don't fully explain complex decisions like quitting smoking on medical advice.