How do you spell coercion?

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · May 1, 1999, 11:28pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (990501.1930 EDT)]

Well, thank you Bruce. This is surely the nicest thing you have ever had to
say about me. Doesn't it feel good to say something kind and uplifting; even
to a Christian?

Christians may be able to contribute something to the understanding of PCT or
its application. You just never know with autonomous people. In fact, they
may be able to see a side to human nature and behavior that just can't be
measured in the scientist's laboratory. Sort of like an extra degree of
freedom.

Yes, I am ducking already. SPLAT, goes the tomato (or tomatoe, if you
are backing Dan Quail for president)!

Kenny

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · May 2, 1999, 8:38pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (990502.1000EDT)]

You may have surmised that you forced both daughers into doing what you
wanted. But A knows it was neither force nor parental authority that made
her go to her room to read Chaucer. She did it to control her own
perceptions of what she wanted.

And, if I do not, then you would not either, right? You wouldn't know
whether they perceived they were coerced by your forceful words or deeds or
whether they perceived that reading Chaucer was a better use of their time
and were grateful to their dad for his suggestion.

I would say that you are simply *behaving* (as PCT defines it; controlling
for your fatherly authority reference perception) and hoping to subsequently
observe another of your desired reference perceptions: that the girls quit
doing what they were doing and start reading Chaucer in their rooms.

If they do not do as you want; predictively you may decide to change your
behavior. You may threaten them with punishment if they won't obey. If that
behavior does not get you what you want, you may physically force them to sit
down in their rooms with a Chaucer book.

I think you will agree that you cannot actually force them to read the book
(short of forcing them to read it out loud to you). No matter what you do,
you cannot force them to enjoy the action you demand. IOW, you CANNOT
control the behavior of another person when behavior is understood to be the
control of one's perceptions in their own mind (comparator).

If coercion is present between two people, the coercer will only be able to
control some particular observable action of the coercee (a mere aspect of
the coercee's behavior as you like to say), unless you kill them.

I see coercing as a special type, or category, of behavior. Under your
definition, it would be accurate to say that when I turn on my computer, I
coerced it. IOW, every time I do something with an inanimate object, I would
be coercing it. Does this use of language make any sense to you or to anyone
for understanding your behavior?

With other people, is it always coercion to say to your wife, "Make my dinner
ready at 5:30 PM, I'll be on the Internet for another hour." If not, what
would have to be occurring to make this behavior coercion?

Is all behavior aimed at what another person should do coercive? Is there
coercion when the intended coercee does not believe that the person is
capable of or actually will use overwhelming force (even if both are true)?

For me, behavior should be described as coercive ONLY when BOTH a) the
coercer can and will use overwhelming force if the coercee does not behave
(act) as the coercer wants, and b) the action of the coercee which negates
the use of force is against his/her will (is a disturbance to one of the
coercee's referenced perceptions).

It would not be appropriate to describe your behavior as coercive unless and
until one or both of the daughters does something against their own free will
(purpose). Otherwise, they are just behaving; they are not being coerced.

One could reasonably conclude they were being coerced when they resist or
show disagreement. But, the lack of observable resistance would not be a
sign of no coercion. They may feel forced against their will and reluctantly
obey. Also, if they perceive what you tell them to do is what they also
want to do and willingly change their behavior, then there is no coercion.

So, third party observation may not definitively disclose a coercive
relationship between two other people. It depends on whether the coercer
(father) intends to use overwhelming force if necessary to get the coercee
(girls) to do read Chaucer regardless of whether or not they willingly do so.
Probably the only way to know for sure is for the third person to ask the
father and the daughters about how they perceived the interaction.

Rick, *coercing* is no more an appropriate term for what one with power is
doing when another willingly does what the authority wants than *helping* is
appropriate for describing the boy scout carrying a crippled old lady across
the street when she is waiting at the corner for a bus.

Helping requires shared (aligned) purposes between two people. Coercing
requires one person forcing another person to do something the later does not
want to do. Neither type of behavior can be determined from unilateral
intent or action.

Kenny

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · May 2, 1999, 8:38pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (990502.1500EDT)]

<That's because I think coercion is happening whenever a
stronger person (like a parent) unilaterally decides what
another person (like a kid) will do (even if what they decide
the kid will do is something "nice"), without being willing
to take into consideration what that other person might
actually want.>

So, you want to maintain that when a parent unilaterally decides that their
kid will never smoke cigarettes and tells them so it is coercion, regardless
of whether the parent knows or wants to know that the kid hates smoking,
regularly demonstrates against Joe Camel at school and would rather drink
poison than inhale a cigarette?

What remains solely in the mind of the parent cannot constitute coercion. It
is just a want which involves the action or inaction of the kid. For
coercion to be happening, the parent must behave and reveal the action
desired by the kid AND the kid must perceive that he must do the action he
does not want to do or the parent will use overwhelming force to make him
obey. Anything less would not constitute coercion.

<It's hard to tell. I would say it's _not_ coercion if I'm
trying to figure out what A and B want and I'm not forcing
them to do what I _think_ they want to do.>

Well, on that we agree. No unilateral intention by the parent regardless of
the desires of A and B, and no force used (or perhaps threatened) by the
parent on A and B; no coercion.

And, this is where we were last year. 8-( If B wants to go to the beach,
she goes willingly and does not perceive any coercion. If A wants to stay in
her room and listen to Meatloaf, but you force her to go to the beach, she
would experience coercion.

Yes, depending upon the definition of coercion. Hopefully, coercion
would always be the behavior of last resort even for people who command
overwhelming force over the actions of others. That seems like it may be a
blinding glimpse of the obvious.

I guess that a good understanding of PCT might help people capable of force
to restrain themselves more often and search harder for an action that will
get both parties what they want. You know, like Jesse can do but Mr. Bill
can't.

Kenny

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · May 2, 1999, 8:39pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (990502.1600EDT)]

< Suppose I have two kids, A and B. A wants to sit in her room
and read Chaucer; B wants to go out and party. Without asking
A and B what they want (it wouldn't matter to me anyway) I force
both to sit in their rooms and read Chaucer. Am I coercing B and
not coercing A? >

In the case of A, what force would you have to exert? No coercion needed,
even if you could coerce her.

Kenny

Tim_Carey1 · May 2, 1999, 10:01pm

[From Tim Carey (990503.08020]

[From Rick Marken (990429.1020)]

I apologise for my lateness in replying to this post. I've been offline for
a few days. Please excuse any redundancy.

I'm not going to get caught up in the coercion argument again. Didn't it
occur at this time last year? Perhaps it is a cyclical thing.

I would like the following clarified though ...

Bill then asked you:

I _would_ like to know what word you use to refer to one
person using force or the credible threat thereof to control
another person's behavior.

The conversation seems to centre on the external control of behaviour. Is
this as new slant on PCT or am I missing something. I'm asking for the
following reasons:

1. I thought the term "behaviour" in technical PCT referred to the 'working
of the entire loop' ie perceiving, comparing, and acting. I find it hard to
understand how someone could externally control these 3 aspects of
behaviour.

2. My understanding of PCT was that behaviour wasn't controlled but was the
process by which perceptions were controlled. So again, I'm at a bit of a
loss to make sense of a "control of behaviour" statement in this forum.

Cheers,

Tim

Tim_Carey1 · May 2, 1999, 10:06pm

[From Tim Carey (990503.0810)]

i.kurtzer (990430.0000)

[From Rick Marken (990429.2010)]

Suppose I have two kids, A and B. A wants to sit in her room
and read Chaucer; B wants to go out and party. Without asking
A and B what they want (it wouldn't matter to me anyway) I force
both to sit in their rooms and read Chaucer. Am I coercing B and
not coercing A?

Is it at all possible that the term "coercion" could be used to refer to two
independent phenomena? "Coercion" in the first instance seems to be used to
refer to the situation where Person A intends to see Person B acting in a
particular way regardless of the intentions of Person B. "Coercion" however,
seems to also refer to the subjective experience of Person B where Person B
is being prevented from controlling some particular experience by person A.

Cheers,

Tim

R_Marken · May 2, 1999, 11:31pm

[From Rick Marken (990502.1530)]

Me:

That's because I think coercion is happening whenever a
stronger person (like a parent) unilaterally decides what
another person (like a kid) will do (even if what they decide
the kid will do is something "nice"), without being willing
to take into consideration what that other person might
actually want.>

Kenny Kitzke (990502.1500EDT)

So, you want to maintain that when a parent unilaterally decides
that their kid will never smoke cigarettes and tells them so it
is coercion, regardless of whether the parent knows or wants to
know that the kid hates smoking, regularly demonstrates against
Joe Camel at school and would rather drink poison than inhale a
cigarette?

Yes. I would maintain that that is coercion. I presume you would
say that it's _not_ coercion. So let me ask you a similar question
as a consistency check:

So, you want to maintain that when a parent unilaterally decides
that their kid _will_ smoke and take drugs it is _not_ coercion
because, unbeknownst to the parent, who doesn't know and doesn't
want to know, the kid loves to smoke and takes drugs regularly?

Best

Rick

···

--

Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/

Bill_Powers1 · May 3, 1999, 3:05pm

[From Bill Powers (990503.0833 MDT)]

Kenny Kitzke (990502.1600EDT)--

Rick:

Without asking
A and B what they want (it wouldn't matter to me anyway) I force
both to sit in their rooms and read Chaucer. Am I coercing B and
not coercing A? >

Kenny:

In the case of A, what force would you have to exert? No coercion needed,
even if you could coerce her.

Kenny, you're interpreting coercion to mean exactly the same thing as
applied force (actually applied, not just threatened or anticipated).

But it seems to me that there is a fundamental difference between a
relationship where you are free to choose any action you please, and one
where you are allowed to choose only one action, the one I want you to
produce. In either case, if you happen to choose the action I want to see,
I will do nothing to alter your behavior. But if you choose to do something
different from what I want, the two cases are entirely different. In the
first case I will do nothing to force you back into doing what I want, and
in the second case I will apply as much force as needed to make you go back
to behaving as I want.

We can't tell the difference between these cases until you choose to do
something other than what I want you to do. It's like a dog trotting
happily around in the back yard on a chain. As long as the dog is only
interested in things within the chain's reach, the dog will have no idea
that it is confined or limited in any way. But if it tries to follow a
scent too far, it will suddenly find itself stopped: the chain can exert
more force on the dog than the dog can overcome. I have seen some young
dogs go nuts when they realize they can't keep going; they act as if
they're been attacked, and struggle and bite the chain and end up exhausted
and trembling. Yet they were perfectly happy when they were just nosing
around within the bounds set by the chain, before they discovered the limits.

To me, the difference between coercion and no coercion is not whether
someone is actively jerking on the chain or is just holding the end of it.
It's whether the chain exists at all. I will feel coerced if I know the
chain is there, whether it's jerking on me or not. And if I'm holding the
end of the chain attached to someone else (and am ready to use it), I will
feel like a coercer even if the other person, for the moment, is behaving
just the way I want. I will never know if the other person agrees with my
goals, or is just avoiding the pain of forceful correction.

How would you feel about your freedom of speech, Kenny, if you knew that
someone was monitoring every word and checking to see if you were saying
things offensive to, say, Hindus? And if this person had the power to gag
you and prevent your saying such things, would you feel free to say what
you please even if you didn't happen to want to say anything that would
upset a Hindu?

I wouldn't.

Best,

Bill P.

R_Marken · May 3, 1999, 4:02pm

[From Rick Marken (990503.0800)]

Tim Carey (990503.08020) --

The conversation seems to centre on the external control of
behaviour. Is this as new slant on PCT or am I missing something.

Not at all. See B:CP, Ch 17 and MSB, p.91-124.

I'm asking for the following reasons:

1. I thought the term "behaviour" in technical PCT referred to
the 'working of the entire loop' ie perceiving, comparing, and
acting. I find it hard to understand how someone could externally
control these 3 aspects of behaviour.

If that's what you mean by "behavior" then behavior certainly
can't be controlled by an outside agency. But I prefer to let
"behavior" mean what it means to psychologists and other behavioral
scientists: the observable "doings" of organisms. So I use "behavior"
to refer to things like arm movements, bat swingings and ball
hittings. PCT makes us aware of the fact that these doings are
changes in the values of variables which may be actions (qo) used
to produce some result, the result itself (qi) or irrelevant
_side effects_ of variation in qo or qi. Behavioral variables
(like qo and qi) can be perceived by an observer and, therefore,
can be controlled by the observer. PCT shows that if an observer
_does_ try to control a variable that matters to an actor, the
actor will "fight back"; there will be conflict. If the observer
is much stronger than the actor then the actor will lose the
conflict; I call this kind of conflict (where on party to
the conflict is much stronger than the other) "coercion".

2. My understanding of PCT was that behaviour wasn't controlled
but was the process by which perceptions were controlled. So
again, I'm at a bit of a loss to make sense of a "control of
behaviour" statement in this forum.

We say that "behavior is not controlled by external events" to
distinguish PCT from cause-effect models of how behavior _works_.
Under ordinary circumstances (according to PCT) behavior (qo and
qi) is the observer's view of the actor controlling his own
perceptions. A baseball player's running path (qo) toward a fly
ball, for example, is not a caused result of external events
(like the ball's trajectory); it is the observable means by which
the player actively controls a perception of the ball's optical
velocity.

The fact that the player's running path is not caused by external
events under normal circumstances doesn't mean that it can't be
controlled by external events _at all_. The player's running path
is just a variable I can perceive; and I can control it if I want.
For example, I can cause the running path to end at a particular
point by running out on the field and tripping the player. The
trip is the main caause of the path's shape when I do the trip.
The effect may not last long; the player may get up quickly, shake
it off and continue controlling optical velocity. This shows that my
trip is not the _only_ thing that affects the player's path; but
for a moment it was the biggest effect.

Coercion is important to understand because it prevents normal
controlling; it is also important becuase many people (parents,
for example) think it's precisely the right way to raise kids
(it "teaches them a lesson"). I think practical PCT should be
about helping humans find alternatives to coercion. We can't do
that if we don't know coercion when we see it.

Best

Rick

···

--
Richard S. Marken Phone or Fax: 310 474-0313
Life Learning Associates e-mail: rmarken@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarken/

Kenneth_Kitzke_Value · May 3, 1999, 4:41pm

[From Kenny Kitzke (990503.1300EDT)]

<So, you want to maintain that when a parent unilaterally decides
that their kid _will_ smoke and take drugs it is _not_ coercion
because, unbeknownst to the parent, who doesn't know and doesn't
want to know, the kid loves to smoke and takes drugs regularly?>

Yes. By what I believe to be a helpful definition of coercion (an
interactive behavioral phenomena), if a parent forces a child to shoot
heroin, and the kid wants to shoot heroin when the parent decides to force
him, it would not be helpful to understand this interaction as coercion.

Your question implies that I view all coercion as "bad" or wrong. I don't.
If we carefully (and I think wisely) define coercion as a type of interaction
(not the behavior of one person), I am of the view that some people will be
disturbed by the coercion they perceive and others will find their references
are being met by the coercion.

Under this definition, the parties interacting will have to find common
ground for getting what they want. This is what may be of value from an
understanding of PCT.

Bill Clinton, a coercer of the Serbs by your definition, thinks he is doing
good by his coercion. Jesse Jackson, a non-coercer, thinks there is a better
way to get people to do what you want them to. Based on the observed result,
I think Jesse should be our President instead of Mr. Bill.

Kenny

Bill_Powers1 · May 3, 1999, 5:36pm

[From Bill Powers (990503.1132 MDT)]

Tim Carey (990503.08020)--

1. I thought the term "behaviour" in technical PCT referred to the 'working
of the entire loop' ie perceiving, comparing, and acting. I find it hard to
understand how someone could externally control these 3 aspects of
behaviour.

2. My understanding of PCT was that behaviour wasn't controlled but was the
process by which perceptions were controlled. So again, I'm at a bit of a
loss to make sense of a "control of behaviour" statement in this forum.

Actually, I think the word "behavior" applies to what other people can see
of a person's control processes. It's used loosely to refer to both input
quantities (qi) and actions (qo), which is why I don't accept it as a
technical term. The terms perception, reference signal, and error signal
are _theoretical_ terms referring to things that are not visible from
outside. They are technical terms.

Best,

Bill P.

Tim_Carey1 · May 3, 1999, 10:00pm

[From Tim Carey (990504.0755)]

Hiya Rick,

Thanks for the post ...

[From Rick Marken (990503.0800)]

Not at all. See B:CP, Ch 17 and MSB, p.91-124.

Good thanks.

_side effects_ of variation in qo or qi. Behavioral variables
(like qo and qi) can be perceived by an observer and, therefore,
can be controlled by the observer.

I think I understand how an observer can observer qo but I'm not at all sure
how an observer can observer qi. I'm assuming you're referring to something
like the Test where you can get a pretty good idea of what the other
person's qi is. Even then though I'd always assumed that what we meant was
that Person B now has a qi that corresponds to Person A's qi. I'm not really
sure what I make of observing another person's qi, that'll take a bit of
getting used to.

PCT shows that if an observer

_does_ try to control a variable that matters to an actor, the
actor will "fight back"; there will be conflict. If the observer
is much stronger than the actor then the actor will lose the
conflict; I call this kind of conflict (where on party to
the conflict is much stronger than the other) "coercion".

Does PCT say that this is categorically the _only_ option available in this
instance? Isn't it also possible that the actor may begin controlling
another variable?

We say that "behavior is not controlled by external events" to
distinguish PCT from cause-effect models of how behavior _works_.
Under ordinary circumstances (according to PCT) behavior (qo and
qi) is the observer's view of the actor controlling his own
perceptions.

Here's this little qi problem again. Are you now saying that qi is the
observer's input and not the actors? I had assumed that when you mentioned
qi above you were referring to the actor.

The fact that the player's running path is not caused by external
events under normal circumstances doesn't mean that it can't be
controlled by external events _at all_.

OK, this is really good clarification Rick. Thanks. I've been off base
(pardon the pun) here for a while. I had thought (and I'm not sure whether I
read it somewhere or whether I dreamed it up on my own) that once a
reference was set then the environment _did_ determine the actions that
would be needed to control this perception. If, for example, I want to
maintain the cursor at a value of zero on the computer screen and the
disturbance value is 20 then my handle position must be -20. If the
disturbance then moves to 40, I _must_ move my handle down to -40.

Similarly, I had assumed that if a person set a reference for seeing and
feeling the baseball in his hand then the path, speed, etc. of the baseball
would determine (in large part) how the person would act. I'd really
appreciate your clarification on this.

The player's running path

is just a variable I can perceive; and I can control it if I want.

Can't you control it for only as long as the player is interested in
catching a ball. This is actually one of the principles behind
countercontrol (at least I thought it was).

Thanks for the post,

Cheers,

Tim

Tim_Carey1 · May 3, 1999, 10:03pm

[From Tim Carey (990504.0810)]

[From Bill Powers (990503.1132 MDT)]

Actually, I think the word "behavior" applies to what other people can see
of a person's control processes. It's used loosely to refer to both input
quantities (qi) and actions (qo), which is why I don't accept it as a
technical term. The terms perception, reference signal, and error signal
are _theoretical_ terms referring to things that are not visible from
outside. They are technical terms.

Thanks for the clarification Bill. I've covered alot of this in the post to
Rick so I won't repeat it here except to say that I know lots of
psychologists who refer to unobservable aspects of a person's control
processes as behaviour as well: things such as thinking, planning,
imagining, and dreaming are regarded by some people as "behaviour".

Cheers,

Tim