Positive punishment adds something aversive. So, positive reinforcement adds a reinforcer. In everyday language, the word вЂњpositiveвЂќ implies something good.Д«ut in the case of operant conditioning, positive is used along mathematical lines - it means to add something. Rather, вЂњnegativeвЂќ and вЂњpositiveвЂќ indicate the type of stimulus used for the punishing and reinforcing.ДЄ positive stimulus is something you add and a negative stimulus is something you take away. Negative reinforcement isnвЂ™t the opposite of reinforcement. Putting вЂњnegativeвЂќ in front of those words doesnвЂ™t mean theyвЂ™re bad or that theyвЂ™re negating the word that comes after. The confusion comes in when we break those down into the following four fundamental types, based on the type of stimulus and whether we want more of or less of the target behavior:

Reinforcement is the opposite: a response to desired behavior to - thatвЂ™s right - reinforce it. Punishment is what youвЂ™d expect: a response to undesired behavior, to deter it.

ItвЂ™s all about rewarding good behavior and punishing bad. Operant conditioning, a key part of behaviorist theory, means shaping behavior through positive and negative stimuli. If my grad students are any indication, the difference between negative reinforcement and punishment is a common point of confusion. If you think that makes her sound like a masochist, or that she must set scary high monetary penalties on her goals, then youвЂ™re probably under a very common misconception about these behavioral psychology terms that Prof Gill is about to disabuse you of. She mentioned that Beeminder, in large part, motivates her via negative reinforcement.

Negative reinforcement examples