The Psychology of Freedom
Lembrei-me de um amigo já falecido Ernst Greiner, de cujas conversas tenho saudade. Um vez chegou em nossa casa dizendo que descobrira uma grande novidade: que a Liberdade era provavelmente o maior valor, maior mesmo do que o amor.
I’d like to examine the concept of freedom in a somewhat unusual way — from the viewpoint of motivational psychology.
The starting point is to realize that there are basically four ways of influencing behavior: reward, punishment, restraint, and compulsion. Reward means offering the subject something good for performing an action. Punishment means threatening the subject with something bad for performing an action. Restraint means physically blocking the subject from performing an action, for example preventing the subject from walking on a lawn by putting a fence around it. Compulsion means physically forcing the subject to perform an action, as for example causing a man to get on an airplane by dragging him onto it. (Footnote: by rewards, I don’t just mean physical things like money or food. A smile, a kind word, or even a moment of attention also function as rewards. Conversely, punishment doesn’t just mean physical harm. A frown, a sharp word, a withdrawal of attention, or a time-out also function as punishments.)/.../
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