Punishment is a basic concept of operant conditioning that employed to decrease the possibility of a certain undesirable behavior occurring by delivering a consequence once the undesirable behavior is exhibited (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2019). Punishment can be classified into two major forms, including positive and negative punishment. While these two types of punishment have different concepts, they both reduce the rate of a particular undesired behavior.
Positive punishment is a form of operant conditioning, whereby the rate of undesirable behavior is decreased by adding a particular negative consequence to the person after exhibiting the behavior. This can be characterized by a situation where a teacher reprimands a student for receiving a phone call during a lecture because he disrupts the rest of the class. On the other hand, as a form of operant conditioning, negative punishment is whereby the rate of undesirable behavior is reduced by eliminating a desired or favorite item from the person’s life (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2019). For instance, for the student who received the phone during an ongoing class, the teacher seizes his phone and stays with it for a few days. In both scenarios, the student learns that it is unacceptable to exhibit that behavior.
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Punishment-based interventions have remained controversial with most people questioning their morality. As such, when using punishment, some of the ethical considerations include ensuring that it is physically safe and does not put the target individual in a physical, social, and psychological risk (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2019). The intervention should be used solely for therapeutic effectiveness, and the punishment should be delivered in a caring and compassionate manner. If the punishment demonstrates ineffectiveness, it should be terminated immediately. The less intrusive punitive methods should be employed first unless they are ineffective. The intervention should be responsive and sensitive to the general social, psychological, and physical needs of the target person.
References
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2019). Applied behavior analysis. Pearson International
