A student receives 2 nights of detention for refusing teacher direction and uttering rude comments. The student no longer utters rude comments.
This is negative punishment. The act is negative punishment because the student’s freedom to have a peaceful sleep during the two nights of detention was taken away from them for the undesired behavior of uttering rude comments to the teacher.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
A student receives a sticker for each homework submitted. The student’s homework submission percentage increases.
This is positive reinforcement. It is a reinforcement because the whole situation involves increase of a particular behavior, which is submission of homework. It is a positive reinforcement because it involves presentation of a motivating stimulus, which is a sticker, for exhibition of the desired behavior of submission of the homework.
The student who received the 2 nights of detention disliked it intensely. It was embarrassing, she missed her social connections in school and got in trouble with her parents. Thereafter, she complied with directions and used respectful language towards the teacher, even when she did not wish to do so.
This is positive punishment. It is a punishment in the first place because it involves reduction of an undesired behavior, which in this case is the uttering of negative comments. Second, it is considered positive punishment because it encompasses ridding of an undesired behavior through presenting aversive consequences, which are facing embarrassment before other students, missing social connections in school and getting in trouble with her parents.
The student being poked moves her chair out of reach of the approaching finger.
The moving away action is an example of ignoring the student who did the poking. The action is not punished because it does not have any effect on the behavior of the student doing the poking, in terms of reducing their behavior. Also, it is not reinforced because it similarly does not necessarily increase any behavior of the student doing the poking.
A student engages in fight and is sent to the principal’s office. The teacher takes away the student’s recess period for a week.
This is an example of negative punishment. The act is a negative punishment because the student’s freedom to have a fun recess during the whole week was taken away from them for the purpose of reducing the undesired behavior of fighting in school with their school and class mates.
Over the course of a couple of minutes, a student’s inappropriate behavior escalates.
The student’s behavior in this situation cannot be distinctly analyzed. This is because, we do not have the stimuli affecting the behavior escalation ( Baron & Galizio, 2005) . Therefore, it depends on the situation. There is need more information to determine the answer.
A youngster seems to “set himself up” repeatedly to be victimized by the bully.
This seemingly masochistic behavior is maintained by mental health issues. This behavior cannot be categorized as a punishment because the bully does not have any intentions to reduce any undesired behavior in the bullied, neither, is it a reinforcement because the bully similarly has no intentions to increase any behavior in the bullied. Therefore, the bullied probably has a mental issue of deriving pleasure from insubordination or being controlled.
The teacher reacts to spitting by having the student research the topic and write an essay about why the expectoration behavior was inappropriate.
This disciplinary action by the teacher is positive punishment. The undesired behavior in this case is spitting which is removed by introducing an aversive consequence which is doing a research and writing an essay. The student does not like to research and hence will avoid to spit in future just to evade that consequence.
After being belittled by the teacher for offering an incorrect oral answer to her question, Ricky fails to contribute any more commentary.
This silent behavior by Ricky is maintained by positive punishment. Positive punishment works by presenting an aversive consequence, which in this case is the belittlement, after an undesired behavior is exhibited, that is, incorrect answers making the behavior less likely to happen in the future.
Reference
Baron, A., & Galizio, M. (2005). Positive and negative reinforcement: Should the distinction be preserved?. The Behavior Analyst , 28 (2), 85-98.
