Reinforcement & Punishment

Need help understanding reinforcement and punishment?

To figure out if a scenario uses positive or negative reinforcement/punishment, ask yourself these three questions:

1. what was the behavior?

2. was something added (+) or removed (-)

3. did the behavior increase or decrease in the future?

Reminders: 1.) positive and negative do not refer to the quality of the consequence; and 2.) look at the effect— reinforcement is to encourage behavior, while punishment is to discourage behavior.

Read more in Cooper, Heron, & Heward (2020)