Operant Conditioning: Reinforcement and Punishment

Operant Conditioning: Key Concepts

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of an aversive stimulus to increase the likelihood of a behavior. It can manifest in two forms:

• Escape Learning: An action is performed to terminate an ongoing aversive stimulus.

  • Example: The speaker's old-fashioned alarm clock is an aversive stimulus. The action of waking up and turning it off is performed to escape the annoying sound.

• Avoidance Learning: An action is performed preemptively to prevent an aversive stimulus from even occurring.

  • Example: Sunburn is a painful, aversive stimulus. The action of putting on sunscreen before going into the sun is an avoidance behavior. By taking this preemptive action, the person avoids experiencing the sunburn altogether, thus reinforcing the use of sunscreen in the future.

  • Both escape and avoidance learning are valid forms of negative reinforcement where a behavior increases because it leads to the removal or prevention of something unpleasant.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement involves the addition of a pleasant stimulus following a behavior to increase the likelihood of that behavior occurring again.

• Example: Giving a child a compliment or a candy for a job well done. The addition of the compliment or candy (a pleasant stimulus) increases the likelihood that the child will perform the good behavior again.

Punishment (Negative Punishment)

Punishment aims to decrease the likelihood of a behavior. Negative punishment specifically involves the removal of a pleasant stimulus following an undesirable behavior.

• Example: A child has a toy taken away because they were fighting with their sister. The removal of the toy (a pleasant stimulus) is intended to decrease the fighting behavior.