R+ vs. P-
One of the things that drives me the most batty in our modern culture is when people call something “punishment” that is not. That being said, I understand that the ‘layperson’ definition of the word, and the behavioural term are not the same. But I figured I would cover the terms here, so that if ever you hear a behaviourist use them, you’ll understand what THEY mean.
Reinforcement can be both positive and negative. And no, attention is not “negative reinforcement” because they like it. Another one of my peeves. I digress.
Positive reinforcement is adding something to environment to INCREASE the likelihood that an action will occur again.
Negative reinforcement is taking something from the environment to INCREASE the likelihood that an action will occur again.
Reinforcement then is something you do in hopes of increasing another behaviour. So, in positive reinforcement you may blow the bubbles in hopes that the child will say “bubbles” again. In negative reinforcement you may turn down the music when asked in hopes that the child will ask you to turn down the music politely next time. You want more of a particular behaviour.
Punishment can also be positive and negative. And no, it’s not all bad. That’s the lay definition.
Positive punishment is adding something to the environment to DECREASE the likihood that an action will occur again.
Negative punishment is taking something from the environment to DECREASE the likelihood that an action will occur again.
Punishment then is something you do in hopes of decreasing another behaviour. So in positive punishment you may reprimand a child for screaming in hopes they won’t scream next time. In negative punishment you may turn off the music in hopes they stop screaming.
Now here’s where punishment gets tricky. Punishment in behavioural terms is only punishment if it decreases the likelihood of the future behaviour. So, if you yell and yell and yell and yell and the child keeps doing the thing, it’s not punishment. It’s not decreasing the future likelihood of the behaviour. Punishment is only “working” if the future likelihood lessens.
Now, as a science, we don’t do punishment, as a first resort. It has a tendency to have some unpleasant side-effects. Further, there are always a plethora of ways to reinforce first. A good behaviour analyst can come up with many varied ways of reinforcing before resorting to punishment. There is a place for reinforcement though.
One more word about both reinforcement and punishment - from the world of the everyday. Neither reinforcement nor punishment are necessarily at work if the thing that does the ‘reinforcement’ or ‘punishment’ is not IMMEDIATE behind the behaviour. So I see a lot of people throw the term punishment around when they tell a child “when we get home you’re going straight to your room”. By ABA definition, this is not punishment. The child is not IMMEDIATELY going there after whatever behaviour, therefore it is more attached to going home than it is to the behaviour.
This is why you’ll see a child who whines for candy in a store, is denied, sent to their room, but then whines for candy the next time in the same store. For them, the whining and the going to their room aren’t correlated. This is when it would be wise to call in a BCBA to assist :)
