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Long Term Benefits of Positive Reinforcement vs Negative Reinforcement
Long Term Benefits of Positive Reinforcement vs Negative Reinforcement by J. Richard Kirkham
Over the years of tutoring students with behavior challenges, I’ve noticed a pattern of negative reinforcement by both parents and teachers in an attempt to diminish or stop such behaviors.
Let’s review some basic behavioral reactions from all human beings. This includes both adults and children since these are basic behaviors.
Children and adults avoid negative stimuli.
This includes but is not inclusive to spankings, getting yelled at by the boss, or even disapproving looks.
Children and adults attempt to receive positive stimuli
This includes but is not inclusive to hugs, getting complemented by the boss, or even approving looks.
In the absence of any stimuli children and adults will attempt to create situation wherein responses by authority figures or peers is motivated.
In most cases I’ve witnessed in both children and adults the activity to promote this stimuli tends to be in the form of a negative behavior issue. Again, this applies to both children and adults from throwing paper airplanes to antics at the water cooler at the office.
Why are these behaviors primarily negative?
Let’s consider the way we were raised.
I’ve actually had successful, intelligent parents tell me and I quote one person
“My wife and I don’t believe in rewarding expected behavior.”
What do you believe my former student will do when he/she feels a need for attention? Do well on a test? No, that’s expected. As is behaving in class, in public and basically acting in an appropriate manner in all situations.
I’ve seen the same attitude in over 75% of the parents who hired me to consult with them over email or tutor their child and it’s not the parents fault. Most parents don’t have a background in teaching, counseling or psychology They raise their children, in most cases, the way they were raised. Getting the occasional tip from another parent or television. If the technique the parent uses even temporarily hinders a behavior. They feel successful.
For the most part, if the child has no extreme behaviors, the parents techniques raise a socially acceptable child with average goals in life, but at what loss of potential?
Let’s look inside the mind of a child through adulthood.
Let’s presume he/she has average self-trained parents who understand the benefits of positive reinforcement, but are, for the most part unsure how to execute it and therefore is sporadic at best.
Here’s a scenario;
John gets an A on his test. Parents praise him.
The next class John tries hard though he gets a D. Parents admonish him.
John gets another D in the same class. Parents ground him
John gets yet another D parents take away his hand held gamer
John stops trying in the class
John resorts to acting out for attention in that class
As his peers grow accustom to his behaviors John escalates them in order to receive the same amount of attention.
The parents finally have a meeting with the teacher of that class to find out why John gets into trouble in that class.
This can escalate further but generally doesn’t. Do you now understand, however, why we act out in a negative manner in order to get attention. We keep the traits in us which are reinforced whether this reinforcement consists of negative or positive stimuli.
Let’s now examine some parents who, through classes study or perhaps even buying my book (were they the one’s) understand the importance of consistent positive reinforcement.
John gets a D on his test
A compliment is followed by constructive questions
John changes his study habits
John still gets a D
The parents hit a heavy bag, power-walk and release their stress in constructive ways.
A compliment is followed by constructive questions
The parents have a meeting with John’s teacher for the class.
The teacher works with John.
John probably does better on the next test.
Regardless of the results John still has his support group and is not alone. Which means I probably won’t get the “you’re my last hope” call.
Let’s carry both these scenarios into adulthood
Primarily Negative Stimuli
John graduated high school with B’s and C’s He’s working at a grocery store. He bags groceries and is a hard worker. He does what he’s told at work because he doesn’t want to get into trouble. He shows up to work regularly and has had a few raises.
Scenario with primarily positive reinforcement
John graduated high school with A’s and B’s. He started out bagging groceries. John knew he could do better than that. He worked hard utilizing the same positive reinforcement techniques his parents had utilized with him to improve his self-confidence. The customers, coworkers, and management appreciated his positive attitude and hard work. John asked questions and was not afraid to try or suggest new ways of performing daily tasks at work.
He’s now the manager of the grocery store with a very busy schedule as he is taking college courses in the evening.
Conclusion
Though John’s character is fictional, the results are not. Self-confidence and a lack of fear to attempt to achieve tasks without negative reprisals due to temporary lack of achievement is a must for the building blocks for both leadership and innovation. Without consistent positive reinforcement the child’s chances of realizing this self-confidence to perserveer and to develop and initiate new ideas and methodology is greatly restricted.
Let me conclude with a quote from my book
“Do you want your child to want to do the right thing or be afraid to do the wrong thing?
About the Author
J. Richard Kirkham is a dual certified teacher and martial arts instructor. He has expertise in alternative teaching methods and positive reinforcement methodology. He’s written several books in the printable electronic format and has made downloadable videos and DVDs. One of his books he put his heart and soul into is “Tutoring and Positive Reinforcement Techniques and Methodology for all Parents and Teachers” formerly titled “Raising Your Child to be More Positive and More Confident” Feel free to visit Mr. Kirkham’s website at KirkhamsEbooks.com or you may email him at help@kirkhamsebooks.com
Identifying The Effects Of Positive Reinforcement
What are the general effects of positive reinforcement? This is a fairly broad question and cannot be answered without getting a bit more specific. When this strategy is applied to someone with a learning disorder, the effects of positive reinforcement can be quite profound. When that same person has ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) the results can even be quite astounding.
It is important to understand exactly why positive reinforcement is necessary at all for a person with ASD. First of all, most of the millions of children born with some form of Autism will tend to be unable to copy or mimic the behaviors and actions of those around them. This might be because that child’s Autism manifests itself as an inability to notice sounds and activity going on around them or because the child prefers to play alone all of the time.
Regardless of the cause, when a child with ASD does not experience communication training, they need to be introduced to it in a way that is suited to their abilities. Often, a parent or teacher will count on the effects of positive reinforcement to encourage a child’s behaviors. In the example of learning to communicate by copying those around them, a child may need to be encouraged to interact first with a teacher and then to use those skills in a wider environment such as a play group or classroom.
How do parents and teachers learn the strategies that will introduce the child to the good effects of positive reinforcement? Though there are no documented cures for Autism, there are some therapies and treatments that are widely advocated by medical and educational experts. At the very top of most lists is something known as ABA.
This translates to Applied Behavior Analysis and it is actually the science by which human behavior is observed, analyzed and then changed through specialized tactics one of which is positive reinforcement. A child with ASD might be monitored in their learning environment by a trained teacher or educator. This person is going to be looking for the reasons that the child may, or may not, be behaving in a certain way. They will then use very precise teaching techniques and positive reinforcement to ensure that the child begins to behave in the ways that are meaningful and positive to their life. This approach usually ensures that a child with ASD is as independent and productive as possible.
Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential. MP’s courses developed by 2 PhD BCBA’s were created to empower parents and school systems to provide effective and affordable training to school systems. To see more visit www.maximumpotentialkids.com or www.abatrainingcourse.com
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The Beneficial Effects Of Positive Reinforcement
Education often uses positive or negative reinforcement to teach the student a lesson. For instance, a child learning to speak is going to receive smiles when they emulate the sounds of the adults around them, and this is going to encourage them to continue with their attempts at speech. This is a simple illustration of the effects of positive reinforcement, but there are some people for whom this tactic just cannot work. Consider the millions of children born with some form of ASD.
ASD stands for Autism Spectrum Disorders and is a sort of umbrella name for a large category of issues. These issues can range from very mild to very severe, and unfortunately there is no known cure for any of them. Instead, there are widely accepted therapies and treatments. Among the most widely accepted are the treatments that use ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) as their foundations.
Applied Behavior Analysis is not actually a treatment in itself but is the science by which human behaviors are observed, analyzed and altered accordingly. Most of the ABA strategies that are used for children with ASD issues will count on the effects of positive reinforcement to generate reliable results.
These strategies are often different from those used by the parents and teachers of children without ASD because such children have no impairment to their ability to imitate. As mentioned at the opening of this brief article, a child with ASD may not be able to emulate the speech patterns and communication skills of the adults around them. This is not something willfully done and is simply a symptom of the Autism disorder.
This means that the child will need to experience the effects of positive reinforcement in a different way. For example, a parent or teacher may need to identify the types of rewards that a child needs to encourage them to focus on developing their speech. This reward will then serve to help that child to communicate more effectively and on a much more independent basis. Soon, the effects of positive reinforcement (the reward) will become unnecessary as the child learns to associate the pleasure of speech and communication with their own emotional responses.
This is certainly more complicated than the traditional route to speech development, but ABA tactics are known to be one of the most beneficial to children dealing with any level of ASD. Parents and teachers are encouraged to seek training for themselves in order to implement the best strategies at home and at school.
Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential. MP’s courses developed by 2 PhD BCBA’s were created to empower parents and school systems to provide effective and affordable training to school systems. To see more visit www.maximumpotentialkids.com or www.abatrainingcourse.com
Measuring The Effects Of Positive Reinforcement
There are many people who are born with some sort of disability, and in the United States it is estimated that one in every one thousand children is born with ASD. This is also referred to under the blanket term of Autism but actually means the Autism Spectrum Disorders. This is because someone with the condition can show an array of symptoms with some people showing only the mildest signs of the disorders and others showing extreme signs of the issues.
While there is no known cure for ASD, there is a lot of information about the various treatments that have been proven to be effective. Among the most amazing things about treatments for ASD are the documented effects of positive reinforcement.
This is something that is normally detected when using the principles and strategies associated with something known as ABA. This is the acronym for Applied Behavior Analysis and is the science that serves as the foundation for some of the most effective treatments for people with ASD.
Why are the effects of positive reinforcement such an important part of ABA? It helps to understand that people with Autism tend to be lacking in the ability to mimic or imitate. This is actually a core part of the human developmental process, and when someone cannot emulate the actions of those around them they will fail to develop good communication, social, and academic skills. When, however, a teacher or parent is able to give a great deal of support to a child’s efforts, this can really help them to master some of those skills that are essential to an independent and socially active life.
How are the effects of positive reinforcement measured? Basically, the ABA tactics are going to be somewhat outside of the traditional teaching or learning parameters. For example, a teacher will have to accept that their usual, structured teaching patterns may not have any effects whatsoever on the student with ASD. Instead, they will have to find methods of introducing them to concepts of interest and then using this to alter their behaviors for the better.
This is where the effects of positive reinforcement are so important because they will guarantee that the student begins to actually view their own behaviors as positive and beneficial. Receiving praise for something as simple as making eye contact can often help a person with ASD to improve their personal and academic skills to an enormous degree.
Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential. MP’s courses developed by 2 PhD BCBA’s were created to empower parents and school systems to provide effective and affordable training to school systems. To see more visit www.maximumpotentialkids.com or www.abatrainingcourse.com
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Asd And The Effects Of Positive Reinforcement
What are the effects of positive reinforcement for children with ASD? It helps to understand that the effects of positive reinforcement are often one of the strongest teaching and learning tools available for those with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This is because people with any of the ASD issues will tend to have an inability to copy or imitate others.
This, as you might know, is the foundation for learning how to speak and communicate and also for learning how to socialize properly too. Just think about a very young baby and how they learn to make sounds by watching and imitating the adults making those sounds to them, or even just in their hearing. The effects of positive reinforcement for a child such as this will come from the approving smiles and beneficial results of their ability to mimic and interpret the information.
Now, consider that a baby with ASD is going to be completely unable to use those sounds and visual cues in any way at all because their minds are not functioning in the same manner. They will not be able to take in the information around them to the same extent as the child in the first example, and would need alternative approaches to encouraging their abilities to speak and respond accordingly.
This is the reason that teachers, parents and educators in general will all seek some sort of Autism training in addition to their standard teacher’s or parenting training. Because roughly one in every one thousand children is born with a form of ASD, there are a large number of programs available, but the most widely recommended and effective are those that rely on something known as ABA.
This is the acronym for Applied Behavior Analysis, which is a science that is totally unrelated to ASD. Instead, it is basically a system by which a scientific study of some essential human behavior is made and analyzed. This information is then used to formulate a reasonable approach to changing that behavior to a more socially acceptable or productive one. Most ABA strategies for children with any ASD symptoms tend to emphasize the effects of positive reinforcement as a means of overcoming an inability to mimic or imitate.
For example, when a child is repeatedly told that their use of sounds and words is good, they can make the mental connection between the positive reaction and their personal activity. This is a great approach to the learning process and is the reason that ABA is preferred by those helping children with ASD.
Garrett Butch is the father of a 6 year old with autism and the founder of Maximum Potential. MP’s courses developed by 2 PhD BCBA’s were created to empower parents and school systems to provide effective and affordable training to school systems. To see more visit www.maximumpotentialkids.com or www.abatrainingcourse.com
Dog Aggression and Positive Reinforcement
As a dog trainer I deal with many behavior problems. Aggression is one of the most common reasons I get called to someone’s home, whether it is aggression directed towards a person or another animal (usually other dogs). In my 20 years experience as a dog trainer I have found that aggression is usually caused by one or more of a few things:
1) under-socialization/fear
2) a traumatic experience when the dog had little to no “padding” of good experiences
3) mishandling of the situation by the owner
4) genetics
Unless a dog is poorly bred, has a neuro-organic disorder, or is bred specifically for its aggressive tendencies, the most likely cause of its aggression is fear. The old-school way of dealing with aggression of any kind was to try to punish it out of the dog. The problem with this concept is that it usually only made matters worse. Yes, a well-timed choke chain correction or shock from a collar may have suppressed the behavior temporarily but, if in the future, the dog is ever put in a situation where it knows the correction is not immediately forthcoming, its reaction will be worse than it would have been to begin with.
Let me put it this way. Lets say you are deathly afraid of snakes, so much so that you react violently when you see one. One day I come along & beat you over the head while you are reacting to this thing you are so afraid of. Now how do you feel about snakes? You would probably be more afraid of them & more anxious because not only do you have the original fear, but snakes have come to predict me beating you over the head. So, the next time you see a snake you would react even more violently in an attempt to make it go away before you get another beating.
This said, the best way to deal with any aggression problem is not through positive punishment. The most effective options are Classical (also called Pavlovian or Respondent) Conditioning, and the positive reinforcement & negative punishment aspects of Operant Conditioning. Classical conditioning is the typical Pavlov’s dog scenario: bell rings = dog salivates. Operant conditioning is based on B.F. Skinner’s work where the animal’s behavior predicts whether or not it is rewarded or punished.
The solution through Classical Conditioning is get the dog to understand that the presence of something it doesn’t like predicts a reward. The reward has to be something the dog finds rewarding, not what we think the dog should find rewarding. It could be prime rib, a ride in the car, going for a walk, or even a thrown tennis ball. It doesn’t matter, as long as the dog only receives this special reward in these situations and at no other time. Basically you are trying to change the dog’s internal emotional state about whatever it is he doesn’t like.
The process for classical conditioning goes something like this: the stimulus (person/dog) appears, the dog gets a reward – REGARDLESS of his behavior! Preferably he is not in full blown attack mode at this point, but it doesn’t matter. Every time this stimulus appears the dog gets a reward. Sometimes he may be growling, sometimes he may be sniffing the ground, sometimes he may be sitting. It really doesn’t matter because the common denominator here is the presence of what he doesn’t like. Pretty soon the dog will be begging for this situation to happen because it means he gets his favorite reward. We have changed his way of thinking. This is called a Conditioned Emotional Response, or CER for short.
Now, for the solution to this problem using the positive reinforcement and negative punishment parts of Operant conditioning. The stimulus that your dog doesn’t like comes into view. Hopefully, being the good owner you are, you know the threshold for your dog in this situation – lets say 15′. You want to begin reinforcing your dog for his good behavior when the stimulus is more than 15? away. He gets reinforced based on his behavior. This means he really has to concentrate on how he is acting in the presence of this thing he doesn’t like. Once your dog is really comfortable at this distance you gradually decrease the distance.
You do not want to get so close as to cause him to react. You want him to remain calm and relaxed. Decreasing the distance down to nothing may happen in one session, or it may take many sessions depending on the severity of your dog’s problem. The key here is not to push it. If you push your dog too far too fast then you will cause anxiety. You will not have a stable foundation on which to build and your dog will not be reliable. If your dog reacts then do not punish him because it was your mistake by getting too close & not reading your dog properly. The best thing to do is to remove the reinforcer (negative punishment) and distract him while you increase the distance and begin again.
Obviously there is more to this than I can possibly cover here, but hopefully this gives you an idea of the process. There are benefits and drawbacks to each of these methods, but either way they are much more effective than positive punishment.
Laura Bourhenne
Animal Attraction Unlimited
Copyright 2009
The Power of Positive Reinforcement
There has been much written about positive reinforcement as a psychology for changing performance. It is a technique both used in animal training and child development, which now has proven as effective for use as part of human resource management in business tool. As a business manager, how can one apply and monitor positive reinforcement?
First understand that everyone enjoys being recognized when they do good work. Only pointing out when someone does something wrong and never acknowledging what is done correctly can lead to negative results. Employees who are given praise for doing things right or for progress in performance improvement will work harder to do an even better job. Employees who are not told when they do good work and are corrected or ridiculed when they do bad work, will only do the work that is required to stay out of trouble in the future. These employees can enjoy their work, improve their attitude, or see a reason to work harder because only bad performance is acknowledged.
With this understanding of human behavior, managers must begin to modify the approach to employee recognition. Managers must notice when an employee does something right and give them simple and sincere praise for what they did. Tell the employee the specific thing they did right and how that helps the department or company. Let the employee know that management has confidence in their ability to continue to perform well and be innovative in their approach to their own tasks. This positive reinforcement of the employee’s effort should occur as soon as possible after the job well done is noticed. Frequent, sincere, and positive praise can go a long way to getting employees to perform at their best.
Giving positive reinforcement does not mean that what is done incorrectly by an employee is to be ignored. Instead, it means to recognize what portion of the work was done correctly first, then follow-up with what can be done better the next time and why the performance or work result was not quite what was expected. If this means the manager must take some of the blame for not giving detailed instructions for the desired behavior or result, they should do so in an apologetic manner and then proceed to explain how the manager personally will try to do better. This is an excellent time for the manager to let the employee know they still have faith in them but need their help and cooperation by their asking questions if the manager’s instructions are not clear. This allows both the employee and manager to get better at communication, which results in improved task completion. Remember mangers need to give positive results first, then follow-up with what improvements are needed, apologize if necessary, and then reinforce what was done right again. When working the improvement or follow-up statement do not use the word “but” as this word often negates anything said before it and the employee may stop listening as they know a negative is coming next.
Understanding that everyone enjoys being acknowledged when they do good work is a typical human response should help improve performance. Business managers need to learn how and when to apply positive reinforcement when monitoring improvements to work behavior or task completion. Managers should always consider the positives rather than only mentioning when employees may be performing beneath the desired level. Positive reinforcement could be the key to better results in human resource management, which should lead to better business results as well.
Shirley Fine Lee, author of “R.A!R.A! A Meeting Wizard’s Approach”, has worked as a training and development specialist since 1986, and an independent consultant since 2000. She has extensive experience, helping organizations with their team building, training development, meeting facilitation, presentation delivery, and other communication needs. This work involves developing productivity tools, presenting workshops, and writing. For instance, she has authored numerous training manuals and guides, on a wide variety of topics. Her programs include time management, getting organized, problem solving, and team building. Sign up for Shirley’s free productivity newsletter on her website or visit her leadership blog. Find out more about her and options she provides on her website at http://www.shirleyfinelee.com.
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