Behaviorist Wrong Do It Again Reinforcement

Learning Objectives

• Explicate the difference between reinforcement and penalization (including positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment)
• Define shaping
• Differentiate between master and secondary reinforcers

In discussing operant conditioning, nosotros use several everyday words—positive, negative, reinforcement, and punishment—in a specialized mode. In operant conditioning, positive and negative do not mean proficient and bad. Instead, positive ways you lot are adding something, and negative ways you are taking something away. Reinforcement ways you are increasing a behavior, and penalty means yous are decreasing a behavior. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, and punishment can also be positive or negative. All reinforcers (positive or negative) increase the likelihood of a behavioral response. All punishers (positive or negative) subtract the likelihood of a behavioral response. Now let's combine these four terms: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment (Table i).

Tabular array one. Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment

	Reinforcement	Punishment
Positive	Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior.	Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.
Negative	Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior.	Something is removed to subtract the likelihood of a behavior.

Reinforcement

The most constructive way to teach a person or creature a new beliefs is with positive reinforcement. In positive reinforcement, a desirable stimulus is added to increment a beliefs.

For instance, you tell your 5-year-one-time son, Jerome, that if he cleans his room, he volition get a toy. Jerome speedily cleans his room because he wants a new art set. Let's interruption for a moment. Some people might say, "Why should I reward my child for doing what is expected?" Simply in fact nosotros are constantly and consistently rewarded in our lives. Our paychecks are rewards, as are high grades and acceptance into our preferred schoolhouse. Existence praised for doing a good chore and for passing a driver'southward test is also a reward. Positive reinforcement as a learning tool is extremely constructive. It has been establish that i of the nearly effective ways to increase achievement in school districts with below-boilerplate reading scores was to pay the children to read. Specifically, second-form students in Dallas were paid $ii each time they read a book and passed a short quiz virtually the book. The issue was a significant increment in reading comprehension (Fryer, 2010). What exercise yous recollect about this program? If Skinner were live today, he would probably retrieve this was a bang-up idea. He was a strong proponent of using operant conditioning principles to influence students' behavior at school. In fact, in addition to the Skinner box, he also invented what he called a educational activity machine that was designed to advantage small steps in learning (Skinner, 1961)—an early on forerunner of computer-assisted learning. His teaching auto tested students' knowledge as they worked through various school subjects. If students answered questions correctly, they received immediate positive reinforcement and could go along; if they answered incorrectly, they did non receive any reinforcement. The idea was that students would spend additional fourth dimension studying the material to increase their chance of being reinforced the adjacent time (Skinner, 1961).

In negative reinforcement, an undesirable stimulus is removed to increase a beliefs. For example, auto manufacturers use the principles of negative reinforcement in their seatbelt systems, which go "beep, beep, beep" until yous fasten your seatbelt. The abrasive sound stops when y'all exhibit the desired behavior, increasing the likelihood that you volition buckle upwardly in the futurity. Negative reinforcement is besides used oft in equus caballus training. Riders apply pressure—by pulling the reins or squeezing their legs—and and then remove the pressure when the horse performs the desired behavior, such as turning or speeding upward. The pressure is the negative stimulus that the horse wants to remove.

Link to Learning

Watch this clip from The Large Bang Theory to see Sheldon Cooper explicate the unremarkably confused terms of negative reinforcement and penalty.

Punishment

Many people confuse negative reinforcement with punishment in operant workout, just they are two very different mechanisms. Recall that reinforcement, fifty-fifty when information technology is negative, ever increases a behavior. In contrast, penalty ever decreases a beliefs. In positive penalisation, you add together an undesirable stimulus to subtract a behavior. An example of positive punishment is scolding a student to get the student to stop texting in class. In this case, a stimulus (the reprimand) is added in order to decrease the behavior (texting in class). In negative penalisation, you remove a pleasant stimulus to subtract a behavior. For instance, when a child misbehaves, a parent can have away a favorite toy. In this instance, a stimulus (the toy) is removed in order to subtract the behavior.

Penalization, particularly when it is immediate, is one fashion to decrease undesirable beliefs. For instance, imagine your 4 twelvemonth-old son, Brandon, hit his younger brother. You lot have Brandon write 50 times "I will non hit my brother" (positive penalisation). Chances are he won't repeat this beliefs. While strategies like this are common today, in the past children were often subject to physical punishment, such every bit spanking. It's important to be enlightened of some of the drawbacks in using concrete punishment on children. First, penalization may teach fear. Brandon may become fearful of the hitting, simply he too may become fearful of the person who delivered the penalisation—you, his parent. Similarly, children who are punished by teachers may come to fearfulness the teacher and try to avoid schoolhouse (Gershoff et al., 2010). Consequently, most schools in the United States have banned corporal penalisation. 2d, punishment may cause children to go more aggressive and prone to hating behavior and delinquency (Gershoff, 2002). They run across their parents resort to spanking when they go angry and frustrated, then, in turn, they may act out this same behavior when they become angry and frustrated. For instance, because you lot spank Margot when you are aroused with her for her misbehavior, she might start hitting her friends when they won't share their toys.

While positive punishment tin be effective in some cases, Skinner suggested that the apply of penalty should be weighed confronting the possible negative effects. Today's psychologists and parenting experts favor reinforcement over penalisation—they recommend that you catch your child doing something good and reward them for it.

Watch It

Make certain y'all understand the distinction betwixt negative reinforcement and punishment in the following video:

You lot can view the transcript for "Learning: Negative Reinforcement vs. Punishment" hither (opens in new window).

All the same confused? Lookout the following short clip for some other example and explanation of positive and negative reinforcement likewise as positive and negative penalty.

You lot tin view the transcript for "Operant Conditioning" here (opens in new window).

Effort It

Shaping

In his operant conditioning experiments, Skinner often used an approach called shaping. Instead of rewarding but the target beliefs, in shaping, we reward successive approximations of a target beliefs. Why is shaping needed? Remember that in order for reinforcement to piece of work, the organism must starting time display the behavior. Shaping is needed considering information technology is extremely unlikely that an organism will display anything but the simplest of behaviors spontaneously. In shaping, behaviors are broken down into many small, achievable steps. The specific steps used in the process are the post-obit: Reinforce whatever response that resembles the desired behavior. Then reinforce the response that more closely resembles the desired behavior. You will no longer reinforce the previously reinforced response. Side by side, begin to reinforce the response that even more closely resembles the desired behavior. Continue to reinforce closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. Finally, only reinforce the desired behavior.

Shaping is oft used in teaching a complex behavior or chain of behaviors. Skinner used shaping to teach pigeons not but such relatively simple behaviors every bit pecking a disk in a Skinner box, just also many unusual and entertaining behaviors, such every bit turning in circles, walking in figure eights, and even playing ping pong; the technique is commonly used by animal trainers today. An important part of shaping is stimulus discrimination. Recall Pavlov's dogs—he trained them to respond to the tone of a bell, and not to similar tones or sounds. This discrimination is besides important in operant conditioning and in shaping behavior.

Sentry It

Information technology's easy to see how shaping is constructive in teaching behaviors to animals, but how does shaping work with humans? Permit's consider parents whose goal is to have their kid learn to make clean his room. They use shaping to assistance him master steps toward the goal. Instead of performing the entire task, they fix upward these steps and reinforce each step. Beginning, he cleans upwardly 1 toy. 2d, he cleans up five toys. Third, he chooses whether to pick up ten toys or put his books and clothes away. Quaternary, he cleans up everything except two toys. Finally, he cleans his unabridged room.

Try Information technology

Primary and Secondary Reinforcers

Rewards such as stickers, praise, money, toys, and more can be used to reinforce learning. Let's become back to Skinner's rats again. How did the rats learn to press the lever in the Skinner box? They were rewarded with food each time they pressed the lever. For animals, nutrient would be an obvious reinforcer.

What would be a good reinforce for humans? For your daughter Sydney, it was the promise of a toy if she cleaned her room. How about Joaquin, the soccer player? If y'all gave Joaquin a piece of candy every time he made a goal, you would be using a primary reinforcer. Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that take innate reinforcing qualities. These kinds of reinforcers are not learned. Water, nutrient, sleep, shelter, sexual practice, and bear on, among others, are primary reinforcers. Pleasance is also a principal reinforcer. Organisms practise not lose their drive for these things. For most people, jumping in a cool lake on a very hot day would be reinforcing and the absurd lake would be innately reinforcing—the water would absurd the person off (a physical need), also as provide pleasure.

A secondary reinforcer has no inherent value and but has reinforcing qualities when linked with a principal reinforcer. Praise, linked to affection, is ane example of a secondary reinforcer, every bit when you called out "Keen shot!" every time Joaquin made a goal. Some other instance, money, is just worth something when y'all can use it to purchase other things—either things that satisfy basic needs (food, water, shelter—all main reinforcers) or other secondary reinforcers. If you were on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Bounding main and you had stacks of coin, the money would not be useful if you could not spend it. What most the stickers on the behavior chart? They too are secondary reinforcers.

Sometimes, instead of stickers on a sticker chart, a token is used. Tokens, which are also secondary reinforcers, can and then exist traded in for rewards and prizes. Unabridged behavior management systems, known every bit token economies, are congenital around the use of these kinds of token reinforcers. Token economies have been found to exist very constructive at modifying behavior in a multifariousness of settings such as schools, prisons, and mental hospitals. For instance, a written report past Cangi and Daly (2013) establish that use of a token economy increased appropriate social behaviors and reduced inappropriate behaviors in a group of autistic schoolhouse children. Autistic children tend to exhibit disruptive behaviors such as pinching and hitting. When the children in the study exhibited appropriate behavior (not hitting or pinching), they received a "tranquility hands" token. When they hit or pinched, they lost a token. The children could then commutation specified amounts of tokens for minutes of playtime.

Everyday Connection: Beliefs Modification in Children

Parents and teachers ofttimes employ beliefs modification to alter a kid'south behavior. Behavior modification uses the principles of operant conditioning to achieve behavior change so that undesirable behaviors are switched for more socially adequate ones. Some teachers and parents create a sticker chart, in which several behaviors are listed (Effigy 1). Sticker charts are a form of token economies, as described in the text. Each fourth dimension children perform the behavior, they get a sticker, and after a certain number of stickers, they become a prize, or reinforcer. The goal is to increment acceptable behaviors and decrease misbehavior. Remember, information technology is best to reinforce desired behaviors, rather than to use penalty. In the classroom, the teacher can reinforce a wide range of behaviors, from students raising their hands, to walking quietly in the hall, to turning in their homework. At abode, parents might create a behavior nautical chart that rewards children for things such as putting away toys, brushing their teeth, and helping with dinner. In guild for behavior modification to be constructive, the reinforcement needs to be connected with the beliefs; the reinforcement must matter to the child and be done consistently.

Figure 1. Sticker charts are a course of positive reinforcement and a tool for behavior modification. Once this little girl earns a sure number of stickers for demonstrating a desired behavior, she will exist rewarded with a trip to the ice cream parlor. (credit: Abigail Batchelder)

Time-out is some other popular technique used in behavior modification with children. It operates on the principle of negative penalisation. When a child demonstrates an undesirable behavior, she is removed from the desirable action at hand (Figure two). For example, say that Sophia and her brother Mario are playing with edifice blocks. Sophia throws some blocks at her brother, so you lot give her a alert that she will go to fourth dimension-out if she does it once more. A few minutes later, she throws more than blocks at Mario. Yous remove Sophia from the room for a few minutes. When she comes back, she doesn't throw blocks.

There are several important points that you should know if you program to implement time-out as a behavior modification technique. Offset, make certain the child is being removed from a desirable activity and placed in a less desirable location. If the action is something undesirable for the kid, this technique will backfire because it is more enjoyable for the child to exist removed from the activity. Second, the length of the fourth dimension-out is important. The general rule of thumb is one minute for each year of the child'south age. Sophia is five; therefore, she sits in a fourth dimension-out for five minutes. Setting a timer helps children know how long they take to sit down in time-out. Finally, equally a caregiver, go along several guidelines in mind over the course of a time-out: remain calm when directing your child to time-out; ignore your child during time-out (because caregiver attending may reinforce misbehavior); and give the child a hug or a kind word when time-out is over.

Figure 2. Time-out is a popular course of negative punishment used by caregivers. When a child misbehaves, he or she is removed from a desirable activity in an effort to decrease the unwanted behavior. For example, (a) a child might exist playing on the playground with friends and push another child; (b) the child who misbehaved would then be removed from the activity for a curt period of time. (credit a: modification of piece of work past Simone Ramella; credit b: modification of work past "Spring Dew"/Flickr)

Effort It

Review operant workout and the differences between reinforcement and penalization in the post-obit interactive:

Think It Over

• Explicate the divergence between negative reinforcement and punishment, and provide several examples of each based on your own experiences.
• Think of a beliefs that you take that you lot would similar to alter. How could you lot utilise behavior modification, specifically positive reinforcement, to change your behavior? What is your positive reinforcer?

Glossary

negative penalisation:taking away a pleasant stimulus to decrease or stop a beliefs

negative reinforcement:taking away an undesirable stimulus to increment a behavior

positive punishment:adding an undesirable stimulus to stop or decrease a behavior

positive reinforcement:adding a desirable stimulus to increment a behavior

primary reinforcer:has innate reinforcing qualities (e.g., food, water, shelter, sex)

punishment:implementation of a consequence in club to decrease a beliefs

reinforcement:implementation of a consequence in order to increase a behavior

secondary reinforcer:has no inherent value unto itself and merely has reinforcing qualities when linked with something else (east.g., money, golden stars, poker fries)

shaping:rewarding successive approximations toward a target behavior

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/waymaker-psychology/chapter/operant-conditioning/