Page 3 - Operant Conditioning

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.