Consistently Inconsistent

Inconsistent punishment is worse than no punishment if you want to curb undesired behavior. In recent weeks, NASCAR officials have levied multiple penalties. With each penalty assessed, the vast majority of teams are appealing the accusations and resultant penalties and most typically receive an adjusted or an overturned penalty after the conclusion of the appeals process. After the incident on track last week with Bubba Wallace intentionally wrecking and then physically assaulting Kyle Larson and ignoring a direct order from an official, a one-race suspension was handed out – two full days after the incident. Many fans, reporters, and other drivers and team members have been quite outspoken about this penalty, with comments ranging from “how is that any different than what [insert driver name here] did to [insert other driver’s name here] at [insert track here] in [insert random year here]?” to “that was nowhere near enough! He should be indefinitely suspended/also fined/suspended the rest of the season” and everywhere in between. It seems no one is satisfied with the results of the latest penalty. But is it really about what Wallace did to Larson? Or is there something deeper causing the uproar?

Ask the parent, childcare provider, or instructor of any child and they will all agree that being consistent with your expectations and the accompanying rewards and consequences is vital to nurturing appropriate behavior. Whether the child is an infant or a teenager, neurotypical or neurodivergent, maintaining consistency is key. Even changes from one caregiver to another in terms of expectations can cause children to rebel. Setting clear expectations, even those as simple as “turn off the light when you are the last person to leave the room,” can help children excel in daily tasks. Clear rewards and consequences are also part of helping children thrive. If you are not consistent, then the behaviors exhibited will not be consistent either.

Better Brains for Babies (www.bbbgeorgia.org) says, “Positive consistent environments help children develop trust, emotional security, and secure attachments. Consistent environments give children the security to feel relaxed, be open to learning, and learn how to manage their own behavior and make good decisions.” After Wallace’s intentional wreck and physical assault on Larson, many people have called for anger management courses to be ordered in addition to the suspension levied. With so many drivers appearing to have anger management issues, perhaps NASCAR should look internally and see how their inconsistent application of rules has fostered an inability to manage behavior and make good decisions.

How does no punishment seem to work out better than inconsistent punishment? In Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy (ABA), caregivers are taught a method of removing undesired behaviors called “extinction.” Extinction is a method of completely ignoring an undesired behavior in order to eliminate or at least decrease the occurrence of said behavior. For example, a child shouts a curse word and the caregiver responds with “No, don’t say that” and finger to the lips of the child to shush them. The child learns to equate attention and physical touch with the shouting of a curse word. For a child who craves attention and physical touch from that caregiver, this response gives them exactly what they want, so they will continue with the undesired behavior. However, if the caregiver starts to ignore the child’s shouted curse words, the child will eventually learn that this behavior does not produce the desired outcome, and will hopefully cease it entirely. This makes “no punishment” a better way to handle the undesired behavior than a consistent specific response or an inconsistent response.

Let’s look at an example of inconsistent punishment. A caregiver for a group of five children, all in the same age range, same background, same demographics, says to them, “it’s time to clean up. Each of you pick up two toys and put them in the toy bin. Otherwise, you don’t get recess.” Child One picks up two toys, puts them in the bin, and is rewarded with a smile and is sent to line up at the door for recess. Child Two picks up two toys, puts them in the bin, and is rewarded with a smile and is sent to line up at the door for recess. Child Three picks up one toy, puts it in the bin, and is sent back to complete the task. Upon completion, the child is rewarded with a smile and is sent to line up at the door for recess. Child Four throws two toys across the room in the general direction of the bin, breaking one toy when it bounces off the wall by the caregiver’s head and lands too hard in the bin and striking Child Two in the face with the other toy before it bounces into the bin as well. Child Four is sent to a time out just long enough to make sure Child Two isn’t bleeding everywhere, is made to apologize, then is given a smile and sent to line up at the door for recess. After all, the toys did make it into the bin and it really isn’t his fault that the rules weren’t made more clear to begin with. (Plus Child Four’s parents are major financial contributors to the daycare.) The caregiver says “I’m changing the rule to say you might lose recess if you hit someone else with a toy during clean up time.” Child Five realizes he will get recess as long as the toys make it in the bin, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether they are thrown or placed in the bin, and if he hits someone he can just apologize and still get recess, so he chunks them as hard as he can at the bin, breaking one and striking Child Three in the mouth with the other so that his tooth gets knocked out. Neither toy makes it in the bin. Child Five then yells at Child Three for being in the way of the flying toys and keeping the toys from making it in the bin. The caregiver separates the two children with some difficulty, then sends the first four children out to play and sends Child Five to time out while deciding how to deal with this new disaster. Child Five assumes an apology is sufficient since that worked for Child Four to get out of trouble and still get recess, so he says sorry and waits for his turn to go out to recess. Instead, Child Five is sent home for the rest of the week and isn’t allowed to come back for two weeks. On top of that, he gets in trouble with his parents for misbehaving and hurting another child. He had the dreaded “we are disappointed in you” lecture from his parents.

Obviously, everyone can see that Child Five deserved punishment for his behavior. But was his punishment too severe, not severe enough, or was it sufficient? Should he have received a punishment more similar to what Child Four had? The rules had only just been changed. Should the caregiver bear some responsibility for being inconsistent with their own rules? Child Five had a reasonable expectation of “toys in bin + injure another child + apology = recess” given the very recent precedent with Child Four in a highly similar situation. Should Child Four have been more harshly punished? What about that time when Child Two’s older sister did the same thing as Child Five back 12 years ago? It was just considered “kids being kids” back then.

Now add in social media. Someone gets the CCTV footage of “the event” and starts sharing it on every platform. Now the daycare is being criticized for how it handled Child Five and Child Four and Child Two’s older sister. Parents realize the daycare doesn’t have consistent application of its own rules and regulations, nor does it provide a copy of the full rules and regulations for prospective parents to view. You only get to read the rules if you are already enrolled in the daycare. No wonder there is no consistent application of the rules. Nobody even knows what the rules are! People lose faith in the daycare because they can’t trust that rules are written clearly, enforced clearly, or enforced fairly.

It’s been two weeks and Child Five is back at the daycare. He acts remorseful of his actions and seems to have “learned his lesson” during his time at home. Meanwhile, Child Four has learned that he can push the limits of each rule enough that it has to be amended for next time, but he won’t get in that much trouble himself the first time it happens. All year long, he’s stolen pencils from other children, taken their lunches, scribbled on their pants with permanent markers, and spilled Koolaid on their shirts during snack time. Each time, Child Four says he’s sorry and his parents send money to the daycare to make up for whatever he’s damaged, so he gets to keep coming back. Each time, the daycare amends the rules after the fact. Child Four learns that insincere apologies, monetary contributions, and a loose interpretation of existing rules are enough to keep him out of major trouble and let him mostly do what he wants. The other children learn those same lessons and eventually, anarchy ensues. The kids are throwing stuff, stealing things, smacking each other in the head with everything except for the toys that go in the bin, and anything else they can get away with that is not expressly prohibited in the rules and regulations. All of this could have been prevented by some ground rules that everyone had access to with clear and consistent application of consequences and rewards.

Many in the NASCAR world have been quick to respond to Wallace’s actions at Las Vegas with demand for punishment. Clearly, something needed to be done because this type of behavior is not one that would go away if left unpunished in an attempt to “extinct” it. The problem lies with the inconsistency of the application of the rules and consequences within the same race season. Teams have been taught this year that appeals work a vast majority of the time for everything except rogue tires. They’ve also learned that nit-picking the rule book will help you win an appeal and make the rules more strict for the next driver to mess up in a similar way. One thing that will probably never change will be the ones not making decisions on punishments and rule interpretation are the most vocal whenever penalties are assessed. For the sake of us all, let us hope NASCAR learns many things from this season and we enter 2023 with better car designs for the Cup drivers and clear rules with clear consequences uniformly applied. Understandably, they cannot write a rule for every eventuality, but they can make the consequences consistent. It’s not too much to ask for.