Reinforcement is a psychological concept where consequences of an action influence future behavior. There are two types: positive and negative reinforcement, and punishment can also be positive or negative. Reinforcement is used in operant conditioning and animal training, and is also applied in education.
The principle of reinforcement is a psychological concept based on the idea that the consequences of an action will influence future behavior. Rewarding behavior is considered reinforcement because it teaches the individual that the behavior is desired and encourages the individual to repeat it. Punishing a behavior, on the other hand, teaches the subject that the behavior is unwanted and should not be repeated. Punishment and reinforcement are an important part of operant conditioning, used in many psychological experiments.
In both the case of reinforcement and punishment, the experimenter makes changes to the subject’s environment. It is important that the researcher has total control over the environment, as other factors can influence the subject’s behavior, potentially overriding operant conditioning. The most successful reinforcement training occurs in a laboratory, which has closed conditions, but reinforcement is also applied in animal training. Many educators use the principle when working with children.
There are actually two types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement refers to the introduction of a new stimulus into the individual’s environment to reward the desired behavior. For example, a child might be given a balloon after doing well at the dentist, or a mouse might learn to press a bar for a treat. Positive reinforcement associates a pleasant outcome with a desired outcome. Negative reinforcement, on the other hand, involves the removal of an unpleasant stimulus from the environment. For example, a rat entering a cage with an electrified floor would quickly learn to press a button if the power was cut off every time the button was pressed.
Negative reinforcement is used in flight and avoidance conditioning. In escape conditioning, the subject learns to quickly remove himself from a situation where the negative stimulus exists, much like people evacuate a building with a fire alarm blaring. Avoidance conditioning involves learning to avoid the potentially unpleasant situation altogether, and the most classic example of avoidance conditioning is eating when you expect to be hungry, to avoid the unpleasant feeling of hunger.
Similarly, punishment is divided into positive and negative aspects. In a positive punishment situation, something unpleasant is introduced into the environment, such as a spanking for a misbehaving child. Negative punishment removes a pleasant thing from the environment, just as a parent might remove ice cream from a screaming child. Typically, punishment is not considered effective in reinforcing teaching behaviors, as it can be confusing for the individual if not applied correctly.
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