dsm diagnosis of disfunctional list denizens?

Candice Bradley (Candice.Bradley@LAWRENCE.EDU)
Fri, 21 Jul 1995 11:18:17 -0600

Recent posts to Anthro-L remind me of case studies in abnormal psychology.

There are a few alternatives for folks who, like me, are totally baffled at
the state of affairs of this list. 1) temporarily unsubscribe in protest --
stay away for a week perhaps, just get rid of the audience; 2) unsubscribe
altogether (not my choice); 3) use delete key.

Options that don't work (back to Psych 1 classes). Reinforcement => in other
words:

Don't Respond. Every time one of the 670 odd people on this list responds to
paranoid posts, the person who posts the paranoid posts gets a pellet.
Remember Psych 1? Even getting whacked can be a form of reinforcement. Don't
give pellets, and don't whack. Pretty soon, we hope, the behavior will be
extinguished. It might take some time, given the intermittent reinforcement
this list has issued, but eventually the behavior will be extinguished.

Perhaps then we can get back to anthropology.

Candice.Bradley@Lawrence.edu