Essay on Differential Reinforcement

Criminals walk amongst us everyday. When people hear the word criminal, “murderer”, “robber”, and “arsonist”, are what most people think of. No one thinks about the CEO of a billion dollar company, the everyday pharmacist, or even a trusted personal financial advisor. This is due to the “respectability” and “high social status” these occupations hold (Temchenko, 2016). Of the many crimes committed every year, white collar crimes are one of the most highest crimes committed because they are overlooked. On July 28, 2016 , 14-year-old Bresha Meadows, who had no prior record of violence, was arrested and potentially up for a life sentence in prison for saving her family from more domestic abuse by shooting her father (Jeltsen, 2016) . In 2003 the former chairman and chief executive of MCSi Michael E. Peppel, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, money laundering and filing false documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission was only sentenced to spend seven days in prison because Peppel was a “remarkably good man”. The charges against Peppel carry a minimum 8 year sentence (Henning, 2013). Sentencing disparities between white collar crime versus street crime is a crime within itself and some form of justice needs to be served.

Positive reinforcement also referred to as reinforcement will occur when a response or behavior is followed by a stimulus that will encourage or increase the frequency of a behavior. Negative reinforcement also known as escape, it occurs when a behavior or a response is followed by the removal a stimulus and thus increases the frequency of occurrence of that behavior. Automatic reinforcement is an occurrence that is evident when a person’s behavior creates an outcome which is favorable without the influence of another

Positive reinforcement is rewarding a behavior with a consequence that is pleasant to the recipient in order to encourage the behavior. An example of this in The Breakfast Club

Differential reinforcements refers to the balance of anticipated or actual rewards and punishment that follow or are consequences of behavior. Whether individuals will refrain from or commit a crime "depends on the balance of past, present, and anticipated future rewards and punishments for their actions" (Akers and Jensen, 2006 p. 39-40). The probability that an act will be committed or repeated is increased by rewards that are higher in value and/or greater in number- positive reinforcement. Reinforces can be nonsocial as well, for example, the direct physical effects of drugs and alcohol (Akers et al. 1979). However, whether or not these effects are experienced positively or negatively is based upon previous learned expectations.

White-collar crimes are just as prevalent today as ordinary street crimes. Studies show that criminal acts committed by white-collar criminals continue to increase due to unforeseen opportunities presented in the corporate world, but these crimes are often overlooked or minimally publicized in reference to criminal acts on the street. Many street crimes are viewed as unnecessary, horrendous crimes because they are committed by lower class citizens, whereas white collar crimes are illegal acts committed by seemingly respectable people whose occupational roles are considered successful and often admired by many (Piquero, 2014). These views often allow white collar crimes to “slip through the cracks” and carry lesser charges or punishment.

Most everyone goes home after a long day of work and watches the news. Think, what is usually reported? The weather, local activities, headline news, or daily criminal activity. Shootings, stabbings, homicides, etc. are all discussed by media anchors these days. This causes most everyone in our society to become familiar with crimes that are considered street crimes. What most people don’t hear about on the news is what is considered white-collar crime, sometimes known as corporate crime. White-collar crime not only is less reported in the media but also receives weaker punishments than street crime. This paper will first discuss the similarities between the two types of crime and then explain why their punishments are strongly

The main goal of this proposal is to explain how corporate crimes affect not only those directly related to the company, but also how it affects families, friends, other companies, schools, and many others. In short, this research will lead into thinking about how corporate crimes affect people on a personal level, but also how to stop the crimes from happening in the first place. This study is important to note because many people who have never been directly affected by these crimes may not see how it ties into their own lives. It is a practical research study that will aid in educating the general public on these white collar crimes, which will in turn, lower the rate at which these crimes occur.

Recently the issue of white-collar crime has gained a lot of attention and it is quite common to notice such cases in any part of the world. The term itself is rather old as it was coined by Edwin Sunderland in 1939 and white-collar crime is defined as crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation (Payne, 2013). The

Reinforcement means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to anything stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For example, if you want your child to do something more and more, you may give her a treat every time she does that. Thus the child will eventually know that if I do this, it will be followed by a treat and the more you praise her the more she repeats that. This might be cleaning the table after every meal that she takes and you give her praise or a tin of yoghurt for cleaning the table. Another example of reinforcement could be something happening at work when you know that a promotion comes after a hard work. This is done in different forms of reinforcements which are positive and negative reinforcement, punishment and extinction. There are also different reinforcement schedules which are fixed and variable ratios and fixed and variable intervals. All these are used in our day to day living when people are being rewarded or punished for different responses. This was done by BF Skinner through his experiments which gave him a result that any behaviour is followed by a consequence. (http://www.allpsych.com/tests/psychology/learning.html)

Direct and indirect differential associations provide definitions, models to imitate and differential reinforcements. Your differential associations can change your attitude and meanings, definitions, about crime whether your friends view it positive, negative, or neutral. Positive definitions are attitudes that make an act desirable

Negative and positive reinforcements and extinction strengthen certain kinds of behavior of individuals. Punishment is a big form of operant conditioning used all over the world. When people are punished, it is to decrease that certain behavior produced by the individual. Therefore, behavioral theory refers to conditioning which leads to different behavioral pattern of juvenile offenders.

One of the simplest and most commonly-used methods of conceptualizing learning is that of reinforcement theory (Noe 2010: 142). Every time a parent promises a child a toy for being good during a grocery store trip or threatens a teen with being grounded for bad grades, he or she is using reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory is based upon the assumption that people want to experience as much pleasure as possible and avoid pain. Thus, businesses offer workers bonuses for good work, and issue reprimands (such as docking pay or denying a promotion) for poor behavior.

I believe a weakness of this theory is that it does not explain why everyone commits crime. It also shifts the blame from the individual who committed the crime to the factors that may have caused the crime to take place. An example would be instead of the person who steals being blamed for the crime, the blame is then on the environment because it is a low

     There are two forms of reinforcement: positive and negative reinforcement. When an event occurs producing a positive effect, it is considered positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement involves the removal of a stimulus increasing the likelihood of a positive effect. An example of this would be to take two aspirins to remove the pain from a headache.

Employee theft is a crime that is costing U.S. companies a great deal of money. Employee thefts are growing in number, partially because the perpetrators really do not see themselves as criminals and rationalize what they are doing in much the same way as taxpayers rationalize income tax fraud. Employee theft is one of many personnel problems that is easier to prevent than to solve. Prevention should begin before an applicant becomes an employee. Some theft