Effectiveness of Punishment vs. Positive Reinforcement in Behavior Modification, Study notes of Psychology

Download Effectiveness of Punishment vs. Positive Reinforcement in Behavior Modification and more Study notes Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! 1 Janet Schwarz ECI 517, Fall 2019 NC State University Debate on Positive Reinforcement vs. Punishment: Punishment is more effective than positive reinforcement as a method for changing behavior. To initiate this debate, I would first like to clarify the differences between punishment and reinforcement in terms of modifying a behavior. Punishment means you are decreasing a behavior, whether that behavior is inherently “good” or “bad.” Reinforcement indicates you are increasing some behavior. Again, whether the behavior is appropriate and acceptable is insignificant here. With that said, both punishments and reinforcements can be positive or negative. Positive signifies you are adding something to affect behavior whereas negative refers to taking something away in order to affect a behavior. Punishments (+/-) aim to decrease the frequency of certain behavioral responses while reinforcements (+/-) try to increase the frequency of behavioral responses. I was assigned to support the statement “punishment is more effective than positive reinforcement as a method for changing behavior.” I can support this using a variety of reasons. From Driscoll Ch. 2, according to Azrin & Holz, one advantage of punishment is that it quickly stops a behavior. Azrin & Holz along with Walters & Grusec agree that punishment also has the benefit of teaching appropriate versus inappropriate behaviors in given situations. For example, some students may not fully realize that certain vocabulary terms (i.e. cursing, some slang) are not acceptable at school. When they use these vocabulary terms at home, with their parents, with their friends, and in their communities, they may not recognize that this behavior is unacceptable in some environments. As long as any punishment has been preceded by a warning and reasons why this behavior is frowned upon, providing a punishment for this behavior serves the purpose of teaching that this behavior should not occur at school. For this situation, positive reinforcement would not work if the student did not fully understand why his or her actions were inappropriate. By reinforcing a behavior, you want the behavior to occur again and we definitely do not want these words used again in the classroom. Schwarz 2 Punishment would have to occur first in order for positive reinforcement to even work. Perhaps later we could positively reinforce using acceptable vocabulary in class, but this could not happen as the first step. Another example would be the new student who shouts out questions or answers in class, without raising his or her hand and without being called on. Has the teacher considered why the student acts like this? If the student doesn’t really know any better, positive reinforcement will not work. The teacher needs to consider prior educational experiences or other information in order to teach the correct behavior first. Perhaps the child came from a public, charter, or alternative school where the behavior was acceptable. Was the child homeschooled and doesn’t really know how to interact in a classroom? Was the child outside of a formal educational environment for a period of time? Does the child have special needs, perhaps ADHD or Tourette Syndrome? After addressing the root cause of the behavior and teaching the correct behavior, punishments are needed to decrease the behavior in the classroom for most situations. Of course, traditional punishments may not be appropriate for special needs students. Whether the punishment is positive (scolding, calling parents) or negative (taking away recess, social time, or free time after school (i.e. detention), punishments are the quickest way to teach correct behavior and decrease negative behavior that affects the whole class. Another example supporting the statement “punishment is more effective than positive reinforcement as a method for changing behavior” is the person who is frequently late to work. For the responsible adult who is already expected to be at work on time (after all, it’s part of the job), adding an incentive or reinforcement is ineffective. If being on time is already a requirement, why would it be necessary to reward or incentivize an expectation? By doing this, how long would it be before other required parts of the job would be incentivized? Coming back from lunch on time, not leaving work early, and getting X, Y, and Z done on time are all required parts of the job, so there is no sound reasoning behind incentivizing these job requirements. On the other hand, punishment is wholly appropriate to tackle problems such as these. If we were to apply positive punishment, in other words, adding an unpleasant consequence to