Page 3 - Operant Conditioning
P. 3
Positive & Negative in Reinforcement and Punishment
There are two types of each in reinforcement
and punishment which are positive and
negative reinforcement and positive and
negative punishment. But, often people get
confuse between negative reinforcement and
punishment as they are hard to distinguish.
Reinforcement Punishment
Something is added to increase the Something is added to decrease the likelihood
Positive
likelihood of a behavior. of a behavior.
Something is removed to increase the Something is removed to decrease the
Negative
likelihood of a behavior. likelihood of a behavior.
Positive & Negative in Reinforcement and Punishment
Some problems may occur if we use
punishment. For instance the
behavior will only be suppressed
and not forgotten, increase
aggression in individual, create fear
and some punishment might be
useless as they do not necessarily
lead to the desired behavior.