MEANING OF REINFORCEMENT AND ITS TYPES

Reinforcement is a fundamental concept of operant conditioning, whose major objective is to increase the rate of certain undesired behaviour from occurring again.

TWO TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

Positive Reinforcement can be understood as the operation of encouraging an approved behaviour by offering a reward as a stimulus, for showing that behaviour. In short, after performing an action, it results in a positive response or reward, and then the response tends to be reinforced.

The aim is to increase the probability of the pattern or behaviour. Positive reinforcers can be the desirable outcome, which satisfies the needs such as food, water, money, status, medals, etc. or eliminates the obstacle, in need satisfaction.

For Example:

• A Commercial Ad for a health drink presenting an increase in height, as a result of consuming it, is an example of Positive Reinforcement, whereby increased height is the reinforcer to buy the health drink.
• Income Tax Authorities offer gifts to the genuine assessee.
• Promotion is a reinforcement offered to the employees if they achieve the desired sales target.

One thing is to be noted that, a positive reinforcement, can be different to different people, as an appreciation from the manager, can act as an effective reinforcer for some employees, but not for everyone, as promotion or increment can be a reinforcer for others.

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

By the term ‘negative reinforcement’, we mean that a reinforcer, i.e. stimulus is removed, on performing a certain behaviour. The frequency of occurrence of the behaviour will be increased in future, as a result of removing negative outcomes. In short, negative reinforcement encompasses the application of the aversive stimulus. It is also known as escape or avoidance learning, as the reinforcer is negative and the person attempts to avoid or escape from it.

It is not the same as punishment because in punishment the likelihood of the behaviour is reduced, whereas, in negative reinforcement, the repetitiveness increases.

For Example:

• A person learns to wear a raincoat, during the rainy season, to avoid getting wet.
• People wear helmets, to avoid getting injured, in case of a road accident, or getting fined by cops.

Differences Between Positive and Negative Reinforcement

To understand the difference between positive and negative reinforcement in detail, check out the points given below:

1. Positive Reinforcement implies a process of adding a stimulus when a certain behaviour is shown, to increase the likelihood of recurrence of that behaviour. On the other hand, negative reinforcement refers to a process in which the experimenter, in spite of adding something undesirable, he/she removes the unwanted stimuli, to motivate the organism to perform a certain activity again.
2. In positive reinforcement, a favourable stimulus is added, whereas, in negative reinforcement, an unfavourable stimulus is removed.
3. Stimuli involved in positive reinforcement, have pleasant outcomes. Conversely, in negative reinforcement, the stimuli can have unpleasant or even painful outcomes.
4. In positive reinforcement, the stimuli act as a reward, for doing something, whereas in negative reinforcement, the stimuli act like a penalty, for not doing something.
5. Positive Reinforcement strengthens or maintains the probability of recurrence of response. On the contrary, in negative reinforcement, the organism learns to get rid of nasty responses.