Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement and punishment are terms commonly associated with operant conditioning. The two ways are used to achieve the ultimate goal of discipline. However, they have substantial differences. Reinforcement focuses on increasing the likelihood of a particular behavior occurring in the future by adding or eliminating a stimulus immediately after an action. Reinforcement is divided into two: positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement works by adding a motivating stimulus after good behavior, thereby increasing the probability of it happening again in the future. Negative reinforcement involves taking away an aversive stimulus in response to undesirable behavior. Consequently, this increases the likelihood of the behavior occurring again because of avoiding negative repercussions.

Punishment, on the other hand, focuses on decreasing a behavior by adding a negative repercussion after the occurrence of unwanted behavior. There are two forms of punishment: Positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment is the most preferred among the two. It usually involves adding an undesirable stimulus such as scolding to discourage/decrease a behavior. In negative punishment, a pleasant stimulus such as a toy is withdrawn to minimize unwanted behavior.

Consider the case of a boy who is a playground bully, and the parent wants to stop this behavior. The parent can deliver positive punishment by scolding him when he is caught harassing his playmates, thus preventing the behavior from happening again. For negative punishment, if the child repeats the act, the parent can place the kid on a time-out until he can reduce his hostile behavior. This way, the parent would be removing interactions with other kids in order to prevent the boy from bullying others again. As positive reinforcement, the parent can buy him something he desires (reward) such as a toy when he stops bullying others. The boy will link the toy with good behavior and do it more often. As for negative reinforcement, the parent can withdraw his monthly allowance (aversive stimulus) until the bullying behavior ends.

In this case, positive reinforcement is the best-suited method of behavior modification. This is because it does not incorporate the introduction of a negative repercussion or withdrawing/withholding anything from the child.

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