Last updated on December 12th, 2019 at 09:55 pm
**These articles have been put together by Academy Member Stephen Berkemeier.
Use THIS LINK to read his 5 articles on Behavior Change. Stephen suggests the following order: 1. Guide to Behavior Change 2. Guide to Reinforcement and punishment 3. Any of the strategy articles.
You can also reach Stephen at his LinkedIn**
Disclaimer
These strategies are not meant to be a form of treatment for any type of disorder, but are rather meant to be tools available for your consideration while on your journey to becoming superhuman! If you or a loved one suffers from physical, mental, emotional, or behavioral issues do not attempt to utilize these strategies as a remedy. Instead, reach out to a licensed professional if you wish to seek help.
Reinforcement and Punishment
Alright, time to talk about one of the most well known yet most widely misunderstood aspects of Behavioral Psych! I’m talking about Reinforcement and Punishment. Chances are pretty good that you’ve heard of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, but you probably don’t quite understand how they’re supposed to work. Much less understand positive punishment and negative punishment. I mean those two just don’t seem to make sense! How can a punishment be positive? Never fear, by the time you finish reading this article, you’ll be a veritable master of all four concepts!
Let’s start off with some terminology. Contrary to common belief, reinforcement and punishment don’t actually refer to whether or not what you’re using is considered enjoyable or not. The official definitions of Reinforcement and Punishment are as follows
“Reinforcement: When the consequences of a behavior increase the likelihood that the person will repeat the behavior.”
“Punishment: When the consequences of a behavior decrease the likelihood that the person will repeat the behavior. “
So, in a nutshell, reinforcement is anything that increases the chances that you’ll do a certain behavior again, and punishment is anything that decreases the chances that you’ll do that behavior again. (You’ll notice that neither definition passes judgment on whether the experiences are enjoyable or not).
The official term for something that reinforces a behavior is a “reinforcer” and we’ll call something that punishes a behavior a “punisher”. Typically reinforcers are considered pleasant and punishers are considered unpleasant, but that is not always the case. When you hear reinforcement/punishment as being “positive” or “negative”, it’s referring to whether or not the reinforcer/punisher is being applied or taken away! The surprise is even bigger here, but once again it turns out that neither positive or negative actually mean enjoyable or non-enjoyable! Instead, positive means “added” and “negative” means taken away. So “positive reinforcement” means that a reinforcer is being added, and “negative punishment” means that an punishment is being taken away. To help with these concepts, I offer up the table below.
| Reinforcer
“Increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated” |
Punisher
“Decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated” |
|
| Positive (event/stimulus added) | Positive-Reinforcement | Positive Punishment |
| Negative (event/stimulus taken away) | Negative-Reinforcement | Positive Punishment |
To further help you understand these concepts, I’ll run a few examples by you.
Positive-Reinforcement: You’re a member at Planet fitness, but would like to go more often. you decide to go workout and spend a good 45 minutes lifting weights. Your back and shoulders are starting to feel tired so you walk up to the front desk and ask to use the massage chair. The person at the desk types into their computer and tells you that you’re all set! You sit down in the chair and spend the next 10 minutes getting a massage. You love it and can’t wait to come back for another.
Analysis: In this scenario, the behavior you’re increasing is your likelihood to come back to the gym. The reinforcer is the massage you got after your workout (you want to get another massage, so you’re more likely to come back to the gym). Since you added the reinforcer of a massage to the end of your routine, it’s considered positive reinforcement.
Negative-Reinforcement: It’s a super hot day outside and you have a splitting headache! You’ve tried taking aspirin and taking a nap, but nothing seems to work. Your roommate suddenly comments that you might be dehydrated. They read somewhere that dehydration can cause headaches, you realize that you haven’t had anything to drink all day and decide to get a glass of water. Soon after, your headache disappears and you resolve to drink water more often.
Analysis: In this scenario,the behavior you’re increasing is your likelihood to drink more water. The Reinforcer is your headache disappearing (you don’t want another headache, so you’re more likely to drink water more frequently to prevent it). Since the stimulus of a headache is being removed, it’s considered negative-reinforcement.
Positive-Punishment: You’re out with your friends at a restaurant that you’ve never been to before. You order a hamburger and when it comes it smells a little weird. You’re not one to complain, so you try a nibble and it tastes fine. You finish your meal and return home. That night you can’t sleep because of intense stomach pain, nausea, and diarrhea (sorry for the gross imagery). You realize that you must have gotten food poisoning at the restaurant, and in your pain you vow to never go there again.
Analysis: In this scenario, the behavior you’re decreasing is your likelihood of going to that restaurant again. The punisher is the food poisoning (you’re scared to get it again, so you’re not likely to go to that restaurant again). Since the stimulus of food poisoning was being added, it’s considered positive-punishment.
Negative-Punishment: You’ve been working out regularly and sticking to a killer meal plan! You’re feeling a great sense of accomplishment, and on top of that you have a cheat meal coming up! You know that you should keep within your calorie/macro range, but can’t help but get over-excited. You end up binging at the grocery store and buy all your favorite foods! Your cheat day is filled with ice cream, sweets, pizza, chips, candy, and all other sorts of delicious junk food! The next day you wake up and feel off; not at all like you had been feeling all week before. You step on the scale and bemoan the fact that you just nearly un-did all your progress for the week. You decide to take your next cheat day more seriously.
Analysis: In this scenario, the behavior you’re decreasing is your likelihood of over doing your next cheat day. The punisher is your loss of sense of accomplishment (you don’t want to feel like cheat day is a set back, so you decide to take it more seriously). Since the stimulus of feeling accomplished was removed, it’s considered negative-punishment.
And that is all the basics of reinforcement and punishment! These can each be used in numerous ways to help change behaviors, and the only limit is your imagination! If you’re looking for some more specific ideas and strategies, check out my strategy articles for some new ideas!
Best of luck, superhumans!
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