Punishment - Nov 19, 2015
Lately I've been talking to a lot of parents regarding punishment. I figured I would address this here, and hopefully shed some light on what punishment is and isn't.
As with reinforcement, there is posititve and negative punishment. Wait, don't go anywhere - remember what the definitions of positive and negative reinforcement are! (They are below)
Positive Reinforcement: Adding something to increase the future probability of a particular behaviour.
Negative Reinforcement: Taking something away to increase the probability of a particular behaviour.
Our lives are govered by positive and negative reinforcement. We use them interchangeably from morning to night to get things done that need doing.
So, having been reminded of these definitions, let's talk about positive and negative punishment:
Positive Punishment: Adding something to decrease the future probability of a particular behaviour.
Negative Punishment: Taking something away to decrease the future probability of a particular behaviour.
Parents tend to use negative punishment (time outs, confiscating toys, taking away play dates...). It's not often you will encounter positive punishment. The easier examples I can think of involve Pavlov, and mouse and rat studies... ...
I digress.
As a field, behaviour consultants do not prefer to use punishment. This is for several reasons. Personally, the reason I tend to tell parents about most often is that punishment is the C of the ABC's, which means it's happening after the behaviour. Which means you have to deal with the behaviour, before getting to the consequence. Wouldn't it just be easier to maniupulate the A, the antecedent and not have the behaviour which would not necessitate the C, the consequence?
Antecedent strategies (of which there are countless) help to avoid problem behaviours. If they are identified through functional testing, it is possible to avoid the problem all the time (or at least most of the time - afterall, kids will be kids). Things such as reward charts, chore charts, visual strategies, and more all fall into different antecedent strategies. Most if not all use positive reinforcement, which helps a child learn to do the things you want, work to increase these behaviours.
Another reason behaviour consultants do not use punishment is that it is very difficult to simply cut out a behaivour without having a replacement behaviour to take its place (smoking programs are a great example...). Therefore, only addressing punishment does not solve the root of the problem.
Not to mention that punishment can have some problematic side-effects, such as rebellion and problem behaviour in anticipation of a punishment.
We as a field, do our best to use antecdent strategies, positive reinforcement strategies, and sometimes negative reinforcement (things such as lowering volume, taking away disractors, and simplifying instructions can all be seen as negative reinforcement) to shape socially important behaviours before using punishment.
Punishment is generally a last resort.
** Note: the above list is not exhaustive, I'm sure there are countless reasons more reasons various consultants don't use punishment **
