Is It Appropriate to Praise Or Blame People for Their Behaviour?

It is also true that the desire to be praised and to avoid blame may lead some people to suppress their “natural” dispositions and even fight against previously “nurtured” traits. We tend to think of environmental or social pressures as purely affecting us as children but, in fact, they affect us all through our lives and praise/blame is in some ways society’s continued attempt to influence behaviour. In order to understand this further, researchers have experimented with rats by teaching them to do something and then “rewarding” them with a “treat”. Is that so different from rewarding good behaviour with praise as an attempt to “teach” and so counter “natural” anti-social tendencies?

In researching for this essay I have discovered that it is the interaction of our genetic coding and the environment in which we are brought up that determines our dispositions. However, I do not think that this can be used as evidence that we are “blameless puppets” of our dispositions. Though we do have the tendency to behave in certain ways due to our dispositions, the circumstances in which each action is performed also play a part. Having been praised/blamed throughout our lives for past actions, we also know what is expected of us in the future. Thus, in conclusion, it is my opinion that it is appropriate to praise/blame people for their behaviour even if a tendency to such behaviour is genetically encoded, for every person has an independent mind and therefore has the ability to ignore or follow such tendencies.