Why Is Reinforcement Used Over Punishment

2. Negative reinforcements – this also makes children repeat behaviour but in different ways e.g.: If a child does well in an exam therefore they don’t have to do their chores.

Punishment is a form of reprimand that is meant to suppress or decrease a behavior by adding a consequence or removing the stimulus.

The main difference between a reinforcer and a punisher is that a reinforce has to deal with any consequence that increases the strength of behavior, while a punisher decreases the strength of behavior. 2) Below gives an example of each. Explain how you would be able to tell it is what you claim it is. a. Positive reinforcement: A mother giving her daughter a pat on the back for doing her homework. The reinforcing stimulus being the pat on the back and the behavior would be doing her homework.

In chapter six in the General Psychology course, we learned about “Learning”. We learned the types of conditions that help people learn. One of the conditions is “Operant Conditioning” where learning is controlled by the organism’s behavior. During the lecture one thing that stood out to me was that in the operant condition, there is a term called positive punishment which is used to decrease bad behavior. It is used usually by parents to discipline their children when they misbehave in order to break that bad habit.

Therefore, there is a requirement to expand the discussion about however reinforcement affects behaviour. Reinforcement is seen as: “an event, a circumstance, or a condition that increases the chance that a given response can recur in a scenario like that within which the reinforcing condition originally occurred” (TAHMDC, 2007). Meanwhile, Azrin and Holz (1966, cited in Skiba and Deno, 1991) defined penalty thus:

     Punishment is a process that decreases the likelihood of a behavior to occur again. This is not to be confused with negative reinforcement because it doesn't increase the likelihood of an occurrence. There are drawbacks to punishment. It doesn't teach an appropriate behavior to replace an inappropriate one. Also, intense punishment can lead to results such as passivity, fear, anxiety, or hostility. Finally, effects of punishment are sometimes temporary.

The mere mention of the word punishment as in the origin of the word make most people think of causing pain when in fact negative punishment is very different from corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury for the purposes of correction or control of the child's behavior (Gershoff, 2002). Behavior change strategies based on negative punishment involve taking away a desirable stimulus after a behavior occurs.

Punishment refers to a response with an unpleasant consequence. Punishment unlike reinforcement decreases the likelihood that the response will occur again. Positive punishment is any stimulus that, when added to a situation decreases the probability that a given behavior will occur. If a child is destroying the house by painting the walls and the parent catches them doing this act. The parent may spank the child adding an unpleasant consequence and hoping this behavior will not occur again.

According to Cooper, et. al. (2007), punishment occurs when a response is followed immediately by a stimulus change which decreases the rate of the similar responses reoccurring again in the future. Just as with reinforcement, punishment can be presented in the form of positive or negative. Positive punishment occurs when a stimulus is presented following a behavior that decreases the likelihood of that behavior reoccurring.

Firstly, the reinforcement is thought to be the most effective method to reinforce a behavior. Reinforcement is the behavior that repeats each time when an award is given (Wood & Boyd, p. 154). Unfortunately, it is an ineffective method because it can lead to extinction, decrease of behavior, when the award is not given anymore. For example, a mother giving her son money every time when he cleans his room is reinforcement. The son will most likely continue this behavior because receiving money increases his behavior to clean; but when his mother stops rewarding him, he stops cleaning his room. Reinforcement is not very effective in this case. The idea behind this myth is to help

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.

Reinforcement is used by parents, caregivers, and adults to show children the desired behavior. Positive Reinforcement avoids using punishment, yelling, degradation (Boyd & Bee, 2009). Reinforcement has been around for years and has been used around the world by generations of parents. It is a familiar term in modern society. There are many examples of research that support the positive effect reinforcement has on children.

Those strategies are so similar that both of them can be defined as “if you do this, you will receive this from me”. In the case of punishment, if you do something that you are not supposed to do, you will receive a punishment from the teacher or the institution. On the other side of the coin, if you do something right you will receive a reward from the teacher.

As they say, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime", in other words, punishment is a repercussion of your illegal actions. Punishment, though, should be a crime in itself, done without any opportunity of redemption, leading society towards revenge, and with inaccurate judicial system.

When it comes to inspiring behavioral changes positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment in terms of changing the behavior in the long term. How effectively positive reinforcement affects behavioral changes is closely tied to how behavioral changes are incentivized and rewards bestowed. The case is similar for the application of negative reinforcement. However, rewards and punishments must significantly affect a person’s current situation--for better or worse--in order to inspire change. Let’s look at how positive reinforcement typically results in long-term behavioral change more effectively than punishment overall.