How Can Negative Reinforcement Strengthens Behavior

Negative reinforcement is removing an unpleasant consequence when a behavior is exhibited in order to encourage said behavior. This was shown when

When Conor refuses to work constructively on a given task provided by his (1-1), it is clear that this is a result of the lack of interest displayed by his assistant. Behaviourists such as Skinner, believed in the idea of operant conditioning -derived from his invention of the Skinner Box. Operant conditioning focuses on the individual making a particular response, to avoid or gain a selected consequence. Skinner may propose that Conor’s refusal to actively participate could be overcome if reinforcement or the law effect theory is put into action. Positive reinforcement aims to strengthen behaviour. When Conor eventually makes an attempt at completing a task, positive reinforcement should be used by the assistant, encouraging Conor and praising him for his hard work. The positive stimulus, should be meaningful and encourage Conor’s good behaviour to be

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.

Skinner illustrated negative reinforcement by placing a rat in his Skinner box and then subjecting it to an unpleasant electric current which caused it some discomfort. As the rat moved about the box it would accidentally knock into the lever. Immediately as it did so, the electric current would be switched off. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat the action again and again.

Skinner used operant conditioning on pigeons or sometimes mice receiving food. He sought to measure how the animals would want to be rewarded. He did this by using an invention he called the “Skinner Box”. By pressing certain buttons the animals would either receive a lot of food and have to wait longer, or a smaller amount in shorter time. This was used to test how operant conditioning, being rewarded or punished, would affect what button the pigeon would press.

Skinner, a Psychologist  and behaviorist is known for his work in operant conditiong. Operant conditioning influences behavivor by using reward or punishment. Skinner introduced a theory of negetive reinforcement and positive reinforcement. In negetive reinforcement a behaviour is strenthened by either removing or avoiding an unfavourable or negetive outcome. In skinners theory positive reinforcement is when a reinforcing stimulus is given after a particular behavior is displayed to make it more likely to repeat that same behavior and behavior is being less likely to be repeated if punished.

During his time at Harvard, the physiology of an individual who was Jacque Loeb student named William Crozier, he was intrigued with that a lot than the psychology at Harvard. Crozier and Loeb asserted that genuine science developed from controlling exploratory results, however not just the examination of occurrence beneath investigation. Skinner utilized behavioral investigation as the establishment of his control of trials. In 1930, Skinner built up a contraption that controlled conduct of a rodent. This marvel acquired the label operant conditioning. His performance on operant conditioning got established on Thorndikes’s law of effect. (Thorndike) He brought the term reinforcement within the law of effect. As indicated by Skinner (1938) augmented conduct has a high chance of being fortified, while conduct that is not strengthened becomes brought to an end.

To show how positive reinforcement works, Skinner placed a hungry rat inside the box. The Skinner’s box had a lever on one side, and as the animal moved around, it would knock the lever accidentally. A food pellet dropped immediately in the container that was next to the lever. In a very short time, the rat learned to go directly to the lever each time it was put into the box (Litow & Pumroy, 1975). The result of receiving food after pressing the lever, strengthened the repetition of the action again and again ("Operant Conditioning | Introductory Psychology", 2017). The positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior given that the consequence is rewarding. For instance, every time a child completes an assignment on time, the parent gives a gift reward. There is a high possibility that the child will repeat the behavior afterwards therefore reinforcing the completion of assignments in time.

Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning which examines how often a behavior will or occur or will not occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). There are four different ways that positive, negative, reinforcement and punishment are applied in operant conditioning. They are used as either positive and negative reinforcement or positive and negative punishment (King, 2016). Although, positive and negative apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is the addition of something to the stimulus, while negative is the removal of something from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, this is the addition to a factor that impacts the behavior to increase the amount of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores; the positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative reinforcement which increases the possibility of a behavior occurring by removing something from the factor that is influencing the behavior (King, 2016). For example, scolding a student in the library every time they bring food into the library, results in the student not taking anymore food into the library to avoid a scolding. The behavior that was prompted to occur more was the student no longer bringing food into the library and it was

An example of negative reinforcement is when a nagging managers forces an employee to get a report done. When the report is done, the manager will stop nagging. As you can see nagging is the consequence for not getting the report done. Desired behavior would be to get the report done. When the report is done the manager stopped

Skinner used Thorndike’s law of effect for his experiment in which he placed rats inside a box with a lever. During his experiment, the rats had to knock lever which ultimately led them to food. The rats quickly learned to knock the lever to receive food. Skinner’s focus was on providing positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Here Positive reinforcement would push an individual to repeat desired outcome while negative reinforcement removed an unpleasant factor, later improving behavior.

3 randomly generated multiplication sheets of times tables between 2 and 12 (All participants get the exact same 3 sheets) [the first sheet is 25

Watson (1913) quoted, “give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of the talents, penchants, tendencies, vocations, and race of his or her ancestors”

There are two categories that the causes of problem behavior can be divided into; operant and respondent. Operant causes can also be divided further into two more categories; positive and negative reinforcement (Martin and Pear, 2016).

Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. Skinner showed how negative reinforcement worked by placing a rat in his Skinners box. This Skinners box is different from the one used in the positive reinforcement as this particular box is subjected with discomforting electric current which may cause uneasiness to anything imprisoned in it. As the rat moved around the box it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so the electric current would be switched off. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put in the box. The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat the action again and again. These response is also known as escape learning. Many are hooked into the negative reinforcement. It is also used by circus trainers in especially training a bear to dance. When a bear is still a cub it is placed in a metal plate which is hot accompanied by a music. This specific cub lifts its feet to get rid of the burning sensation it feels from the metal plate. By lifting alternately its feet it removes the negative reinforcement which is the burning sensation. It gets accustomed into this scenario that when the cub hears a music playing it lifts its feet even though the hot metal plate is already removed. Another example is a child cleaning