Psychology: The Two Types Of Punishment

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Punishment is widely discussed in the field of psychology. It is a topic that is misunderstood, repeatedly misused, and very controversial. Punishment is not about punishing the person it about decreasing a behavior. The book defines it as when you add something aversive to decrease an unwanted behavior (Chance, 2008). Punishment does not always reduce the probability of a response.
The definition of law of effect says behavior is a function of its consequences (Chance, 2008). In this case, punishment is defined as a decrease in the strength of behavior due to its consequences (Chance, 2008). There are two types of punishment: Positive and negative. Positive punishment is when you add something to a situation, like a spanking, to decrease a behavior. Negative punishment is when you take something away from a situation, like a cell phone, to decrease a behavior. There is sometimes confusion between positive punishment and negative reinforcement because they both involve aversive events (Chance, 2008). The best way to discriminate between the two is to remember punishment means to decrease behavior and reinforcement means to increase behavior. There have been two …show more content…

James Dinsmoor states that, “this theory relies on the reinforcing effect of stopping stimuli that have been paired with shock, and producing stimuli that have been paired with the absence of shock (Dinsmoor, 2001, p. 311). When a rat presses a lever and receives a shock, the lever is paired with shock (Chance, 2008). In classical conditioning, the lever turns into the condition stimulus for fear (Chance, 2008). In operant Conditioning, if the shock is aversive then the lever will be aversive as well, and the rat may avoid it (Chance, 2008). Both techniques can reduce the rate of lever pressing. This uses negative reinforcement by removing the aversive to increase a behavior (Chance, 2008). This is not a widely accepted

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