Reinforcement
There is a lot of confusion about the concept of reinforcement for people not in the field of psychology. Reinforcement is doing something that causes a behavior to increase. This isn’t restricted to positive reinforcement. It includes negative reinforcement.
A small boy was in my office with his even younger sister and their mother. The mother wasn’t able to get either child to sit in a chair. The mother wasn’t issuing commands or reinforcing commands. It was dangerous for the children to run out of the office or to climb up onto chairs and stand on them. So I intervened.
I commanded the children to sit down in their chairs. The boy sat down. I said “good.” The girl ran over to the door. I picked the girl up and put her in the chair and said “sit here.” The boy started getting up from the chair and I stood up and he sat back down. So did I.
Reinforcement takes place prior to a behavior occuring. It increases the likelihood that the behavior will increase. Saying “good” is positive reinforcement. Standing up by me, is a negative reinforcer. It also increases the likelihood that the child will sit down. It doesn’t involve praise or rewards. It involves my doing something the child wants to stop, like me coming over to him and putting him in the chair. It happens before he sits. It increases the likelihood of his sitting.
Children reinforce their parents as well. The girl started screaming. The mother reached for her. I prevented the mother from removing the child from the chair. The mother complained that the child screamed often. Of course she did. Every time she screamed she got stuff. If that happened at my work I’d scream all the time too. Initially, without getting her usual scream based reward, the girl screamed more and louder. When it didn’t work, she sat crying softly, but she sat. The boy sat without crying. He got to play with toys in the office. I gave the girl a couple of plastic blocks to play with as she remained seated. Eventually the mother couldn’t tolerate the child sitting down and crying and felt it was necessary to pick the girl up. She told me the girl couldn’t remain sitting in a chair. I pointed that the child had been seated for almost five minutes and the boy was seated for almost ten minutes. There was no problem in getting either child to sit down. There was a problem with getting them to stay seated for long periods of time, because they hadn’t practiced the behavior. That would require more training.
The mother put the children on the floor and they ran around again. An office assistant came into the office and told the children to sit down. Both children sat down on his command. They understood and could follow directions for this stranger. They had been trained by their mother not to follow her directions. She would need to change her behavior and reinforce commands to get the children to listen to her.
Negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. Punishment happens after a behavior has occurred. It’s a slap on a wrist, a removal of some wanted item, a critical remark, the dreaded word “no.” It happens after the behavior has already taken place. It is very ineffective at changing behavior because it happens too late. Punishment increases lying and sneaky behavior. People attempt to avoid punishment. Because the behavior has already occurred and can’t be undone the only thing to do is to deny the behavior or change the evidence.
Reinforcement trains behaviors that are desired. It works.
