Negative Reinforcement is Not a Bad Thing! The snoring noise is removed after she puts the earplugs in leading to negative reinforcement. Remember that when something is taken away (the light) as a result of your behaviour (pressing the light switch) and it being taken away will lead you to engage in that behaviour again (pressing the light switch every time you go to bed) then negative reinforcement has occurred. Your behaviour of pressing the switch is negatively reinforced by the removal of the light. This removal of light is something that you wanted and so you are more likely to press the light switch at night time in future. The light was already present before you pressed the switch to turn it off and once you pressed the switch the light was gone. By turning off the light you are removing it or “subtracting” it. Everyday Examples of Negative ReinforcementĮxample One: Turning off a light at night time (Iwata & Smith, 2007).įor arguments sake we’ll say you want the light off at night so you can sleep. When you see the term negative used with reinforcement then think of something being subtracted.Ĭonsider someone taking a shower to remove a bad smell you could say taking the shower led to the subtraction of the bad smell or said another way, taking the shower was negatively reinforced by the removal (subtraction) of the bad smell. When you see a negative symbol in math then it means subtraction. What’s the “Negative” in Negative Reinforcement?Ī good way to remember the meaning of the “negative” in negative reinforcement is to think of it in relation to mathematics. Technically, for negative reinforcement to occur, the person must engage in the behaviour that created the favourable outcome more frequently in the future (Miltenberger, 2008). The stimulus could be anything, for example a person, a noise, a feeling, an emotion or an object. The term "stimulus" would be used within Applied Behaviour Analysis to describe the "something" that is taken away or removed. Basically, when a person's behaviour leads to the removal of something that was unpleasant to that person then negative reinforcement is occuring. Negative reinforcement occurs when something already present is removed (taken away) as a result of a person's behaviour, creating a favourable outcome for that person. His parents are noticing that he has started to cry every time he is in a situation he doesn’t want to be in and they have been allowing him to leave.Negative Reinforcement Negative reinforcement is "one of the most consistently misunderstood principles of behaviour." - Cooper, Heron and Heward (2007, p.255) What is Negative Reinforcement? John and Michelle don’t like to see their son upset and so make the decision to leave the party and go home. Adam doesn’t want to be there so when they get to the party he starts to cry loudly. John and Michelle decide to go to a party with their son Adam. Future behaviour: Adele will pinch her teacher when she doesn’t want to do her spelling programme.Therefore her pinches are being negatively reinforced. Adele has also started pinching her teacher every time it is taken out and so there has been an increase in the future frequency of this behaviour. After she pinches her teacher the spelling programme is removed. The spelling programme is present before Adele pinches her teacher. Pinching her teacher so Adele doesn't have to do her spellings is an example of negative reinforcement.
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