
Negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. Negative reinforcement does not mean it is bad or punishing in nature. Naturally, some of them assume negative reinforcement is the opposite of awards, which is punishment. People sometimes associate positive reinforcement meaning with rewards. Negative reinforcement is encouraging the desired behavior to repeat in the future by removing or avoiding an aversive stimulus. They simply describe whether a stimulus is added (positive) or subtracted (negative) to reinforce the particular behavior. Therefore, the word, positive or negative, does not represent the nature or quality of the reinforcement. When an unpleasant stimulus is subtracted to reinforce the behavior, negative reinforcement results. When a reinforcing stimulus is added to reinforce a certain behavior, positive reinforcement results. The positive and negative here describe how the stimulus is used to enhance the specific behavior. Both positive and negative reinforcement can increase a target behavior. There are also two forms of reinforcement – positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. The difference between reinforcement and punishment is that reinforcement encourages desirable behavior to repeat, while positive punishment or negative punishment discourages it. There are two types of operant conditioning – reinforcement and punishment. The theory of operant conditioning ( Reinforcement Theory) states that behaviors are controlled by their consequences 2. Skinner, believed that one’s behavior could be increased or decreased in frequency by using a stimulus through a process called operant conditioning 1. Operant conditioning overviewīehavioral psychologist, B. Find out how a lot of parents unknowingly train their children in rebellion using negative reinforcement.


“Who in their right mind would do that?” you may wonder. Did you know that parents could train their children to act defiant?
