Intermittent Positive Reinforcement Is Not My Friend

You may remember from Psych 101 the various kinds of reinforcement that can be used to influence behavior. What has always stuck with me is the explanation of the most effective kind—intermittent positive reinforcement. For example, if the rat in the box gets a food pellet every time it presses a lever, it quickly unlearns that behavior when a lever press does not produce a pellet. However, if you mix things up a bit so that a few lever presses produce nothing, then on the next one out pops a food pellet, that rat will keep on pressing that lever. It is never sure when the effort will pay off, so it keeps on trying. This helps to explain why people keep playing the lottery when they have a better chance of growing wings and flying to the moon than of winning. After all, people do win—just not very often.

This principle is one of the reasons I have such a hard time getting rid of stuff. There have been a few times—not many, but enough to keep me guessing—where some item I have put in storage turns out to be exactly the right thing to have at the right time. The most recent example was a total fluke, reinforcing a couple of types of behavior I should be avoiding.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine called me because her neighbor was having a yard sale that included a large amount of craft items. Knowing that I sew and knit and whatnot, she urged me to come over and take a look. I did, despite the fact that I had more than enough craft materials at home already. I ended up purchasing a random assortment of items, including a basket full of a large number of rather ugly plastic buttons, which I rationalized that someday I could use for a craft project. This collection promptly went into storage, unused.

This spring, I ended up helping out with costuming for my oldest son’s class in the school’s musical revue performance. They needed something vaguely military-looking for their rendition of “Rhythm Nation.” I pulled those self-same ugly buttons out of storage in one of the infamous garage boxes, and discovered that I had 68 of the largest size, and another 68 of the next smaller size—enough to embellish 34 hats and 68 epaulets, once I spray-painted them gold to simulate brass buttons. So that barely-justifiable impulse garage sale buy, coupled with the barely-justifiable long-term storage, ended up being pretty good decisions in the end.

So where to draw the line? That particular acquisition turned out well, but I’m sure not everything I save will turn out to have a purpose that simply isn’t clear to me in the moment.

To offer an example on the flip side, I know the original box from the sewing machine is out in the garage somewhere. My tendency to save the original packaging from large items like that (heavy, awkward to pack, and delicate) is a legacy of my military-brat childhood; when you know you’re moving every two years, you might as well hold on to the box so you can pack those items up again safely for the next move. However, my last move was a decade ago, into this house, and the sewing machine itself is older than my marriage. Unlike the days when I first got the machine (a gift from my parents, and more expensive then my rent at the time), I could probably buy myself a new machine if something happened to this one. Furthermore, if there ever is a next move, it will likely be local, so if I’m that worried about the safety of my sewing machine, I can always load it into the car and drive it to our next home rather than trusting it to the moving company.

So that box is finally going to go...when I can find it.