REINFORCEMENT

hye everyone...how are you all doing?? hope you are still in a good shape..

well, today i intend to write about reinforcements...u might be wondering what is that all about and how does it be helpful..actually,reinforcement are one of the ways used to modify a target behavior. wait, what is target behavior now?? target behavior is the a undesirable or desirable behavior that you intend to increase or decrease in terms of its frequency, intensity, duration or latency. basically, a target behavior is the behavior that you intend to change or acquire. for instance, you might have nail biting behavior and you plan to get rid of it. so, that nail biting behavior is now referred to as the target behavior.

so how does these reinforcement work in  modifying the target behavior?? before that,  let's have a look at what is reinforcement.

 reinforcement is defined as, the occurrence of a particular behavior is followed by an immediate consequence that results in the strengthening of the behavior.  the consequence that strengthens the behavior is called a reinforcer. there are two types of reinforcement which are:

1) positive reinforcement - the occurrence of a behavior is followed by the addition of a stimulus (reinforcer) or an increase in the intensity of the stimulus which results in the strengthening of the behavior.

2) negative reinforcement - the occurrence of a behavior is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus or a decrease in the intensity of a stimulus which results in the strengthening of the behavior.

both positive and negative reinforcement strengthens the target behavior and results in increased occurrence of the behavior in future. the difference between positive and negative reinforcement is in the term of whether the stimulus is added or removed. in positive reinforcement, everytime a desirable behavior occured, the person is rewarded with something pleasant immediately thus increasing the likelihood of the behavior reoccuring in the future. however, in negative reinforcement, every time a desirable behavior oocured, the person is rewarded by removing an aversive or unpleasant stimulus, thus increasing the likelihood of the reoccurrence of the behavior.

example:

1) positive reinforcement

- A child managed to clean his room on his own. following that, the mother allows him to play his favourite computer game. in this case, the target behavior is cleaning the room on his own and the positive reinforcer is being able to play computer game. hence, here a pleasant stimulus (computer game) is introduced immediately following the behavior (cleaning the room). therefore this increases the likelihood of the child cleaning his room on his own in the future, because he knows that if he do that, he will be allowed to play computer games.

2) negative reinforcement

- a child managed to clean his room. following that, his mom stops nagging him. in this case, it is almost similar to the above situation but there is slight difference in the way the reinforcer is administered. in this situation, the target behavior is cleaning the room on own and the negative reinforcer is mom stops nagging. hence, here an adversive stimulus also known as unpleasant stimulus  (mom nagging) is removed immediately following the behavior ( cleaning the room). therefore this increases the likelihood of the child cleaning his room in the future, because he knows that by doing so he can make sure his mom stops nagging.

basically both these positive and negative reinforcement works to increase the occurrence of a desirable target behavior in the future. u might be wondering how to decrease the occurrence of an undesirable target behavior in the future.. that one i'll explain in my next post. so, till then see yah