Understanding The Concept of Negative Reinforcement
Reinforcement is the process of rewarding behavior to increase its frequency. Reinforcement can take many forms, including positive and negative reinforcement. While positive reinforcement involves adding something pleasant to increase the frequency of a behavior, negative reinforcement involves removing something unpleasant to increase the frequency of a behavior. Negative reinforcement is an essential part of behavior analysis theory and has many applications in real-world situations.
What is Negative Reinforcement?
Negative reinforcement is a type of reinforcement that increases the rate of a behavior by removing or avoiding an unpleasant or undesirable situation. Negative reinforcement is often confused with negative punishment. The difference is that negative punishment suppresses a specific behavior by adding an aversive stimulus to decrease its rate. Negative reinforcement suppresses a general aversive feeling that increases the frequency of the desired response. Negative reinforcement is used to reinforce desired behaviors, whereas punishment can be used to either support or discourage undesired behaviors.
When is Negative Reinforcement Used?
Negative reinforcement is used to increase the rate of behavior when the following conditions are met:
- You have set clear expectations and communicated positive reinforcement as a positive alternative.
- The desired behavior occurs at a low frequency, and the aversive stimulus is present.
- The aversive stimulus is quickly removed and replaced with positive reinforcement.
- The desired behavior is repeated several times.
- The reinforcements are maintained in the long run.
Negative reinforcement is commonly used in the following situations:
- Error correction: When learning a new skill, it’s natural to make mistakes. In this situation, negative reinforcement is used to correct the mistake.
- Mainlining: When a behavior is so strong that it can’t be ignored, it can often be weakened with an aversive stimulus. The aversive stimulus can be silence, darkness, or anything else that you find unpleasant.
- Shaping: We often don’t start with the most desirable behaviors but with small steps that build up to larger ones. Shaping involves reinforcing progress in small steps until we reach the goal and applying an aversive stimulus whenever we fail to reach the next step.
Learning From Mistakes: Error Correction and Shaping With Negative Reinforcement
Error correction is a typical example of negative reinforcement. It involves punishing mistakes to discourage their future occurrence. In this example, the aversive stimulus is the discomfort of correcting the mistake. It is important to note that you use a combination of negative reinforcement and positive punishment in this situation. Shaping is another typical example of rewarding progress toward a goal and punishing failure to reach the next step. The goal, in this case, is to learn new skills, such as playing a musical instrument, while the steps are more minor actions, such as playing each note correctly.
Communicating New Behaviors: Discriminating and Shaping With Negative Reinforcement
Discrimination is a positive punishment in which an aversive stimulus is applied when a correct behavior is not present. For example, when teaching your dog to stay off the couch, you can apply an aversive stimulus when he attempts to get on the couch. In this situation, you’re not punishing the dog for getting on the sofa. You discriminate between when he tries to get on the sofa and when he doesn’t. Discrimination is similar to negative reinforcement in that both involve reinforcing a response. However, in discrimination, the aversive stimulus is applied only when the behavior is not present. It is used to communicate a new behavior when you want to add an aversive stimulus to the desired response.
Negative reinforcement can increase the frequency of the desired behavior by removing an aversive stimulus. This type of reinforcement works best when applied to behaviors already occurring at a low rate. It’s essential to set clear expectations and communicate positive reinforcement as an alternative to avoid punishment and use negative reinforcement successfully. Negative reinforcement can correct mistakes, add new behaviors, and discriminate between behaviors.
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