Behavioral management programs consist of planned manipulation of positive and/or negative reinforcers with an eye towards influencing choices made. Animal training is largely behavioral management with heavy reliance upon physical reinforcers, food, pats on the head, etc. They are simple and assume lower levels of intelligence.

Behavioral management programs for people assume that people will perform a calculus, if I do X, I will earn Y; if I do Z, I will earn Y1. They are useful in group settings that permit considerable control over variables. We have a sufficient degree of control over variables under some circumstances; when we work with young children and when we work in highly controlled settings(e.g. institutions.)

In highly controlled settings, e.g. prisons, manipulation of reinforcers effectively manages some kinds of behavior. Prisoners will indeed make their bed daily in hopes of seeing a film Friday night. The behavioral adaptations do not hold outside of the prison as the larger world is tremendously more complex.

In children, to the extent that behavioral adaptations are made with an eye towards earning (or not earning) reinforcers, good character development is not occurring. To the extent that behavioral adaptations are made with an eye towards pleasing others, children become vulnerable to manipulation by others. Often, superficially self serving adaptations are being made, and often, as those adaptations are made, children as they mature resent the people or the ’system’ that seems to control the reinforcers.