Positive and Negative Reinforcements - Coursework Example

28th April The term reinforcement as used in psychology refers to an incentive which boosts the probability of a particular response (Athabasca University 2010). Can both be a positive or a negative response, and happen to be used each and more often either consciously or unconsciously. Positive response is the use of a stimulus with an aim of increasing a response (Athabasca University 2010). It entails the introduction of a thing (presentation) that was previously unavailable with an aim of improving better behavior in the future. Positive response is exhibited either through rewarding or praising of a marvelous thing done ( Appel, 1963). For example, a mother appreciating a child, by say” well done”, for having completed homework in time. This will increase the child’s chances of completing the job in time. Telling a person how good they look like when dressed up, or may be if one wants his dog to stand on command, and maybe give it a treat, say, “ a piece of meat” every time it stands up. Finally, the dog will know that every time it stands when asked to will lead to a piece of meat; this shows an increase in the response of standing (Athabasca University 2010). The behavior of employees at the workplace can be shaped also through positive reinforcement. Positive response can be exhibited through rewarding an employee who exceeds the targeted sales for an entity, by giving paid vacation or sales bonuses to the employee. In conclusion, positive reinforcement is said to have occurred when an outcome is offered dependent on behavior, the behavior instigated becomes more likely, and that the likelihood of the behavior to happen is as a result of the outcome presented dependent on the behavior (Michael, 1975). Negative reinforcement is the taking away, removal, reduction, prevention or postponement of stimulation, with an aim of increasing a desired response or a favorable outcome (Iwata & Smit, 2008). The ‘thing’ that is being removed can also be termed as ‘stimulus’, an example of it can either be a person an object or lousy behavior. Negative reinforcement is exhibited when an individual engages in the favorable outcome more often in future (Miltenberger, 2008). For example, negative reinforcement can be exhibited when one applies sunscreen in order to avoid sunburns, taking a shower when one recognizes that he has a staunch smell from his body, or waking up early, so as to leave the house early to avoid traffic jam catching up on an individual and being late for work. However, negative response will be exhibited only when the behavior is carried out often. For example, the change of behavior of a house help after being continuously shouted and made noise at by the employer due lack of emptying the dustbin. The change of the house help behavior, makes the employer to stop shouting and complaining. The seizing of the noise is reinforcing, and it perpetuates the emptying of the dustbin by the house help regularly. Although the term rewarding is frequent used when addressing positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement can also be rewarding. For example, a student who takes a shower after noticing that he was stinking. After taking the shower, the smells goes off, thus, his behavior of taking a shower was negatively reinforced with the removal of the smell. There is an increased likelihood that the student will take a shower whenever he notices that he is stinking. Also, negative reinforcement is when someone engages in bad behavior and gets something out of it. For example, a child who takes a container of food from school that does not belong to him. The teacher on duty later reports the child for having taken the container; due to embarrassment the child’s parent buys a new container of food for the child. It is bad behavior of the child to have taken up a container of food that deed not belong to him. However, his behavior earns him his own container of food to prevent him from stealing one again and bringing future embarrassments to its mother. Negative response is important in clinical psychology because it helps in behavioral development or the behavioral modification of patients. Negative reinforcement is a therapy technique, as it helps removal of undesirable behavior from patients, for example, obsession, neuroses, nervousness, autism and schizophrenia. Negative reinforcement is important to the clinical psychologists especially when treating traumatized patients. It is used when the psychiatrist want to help the patient to avoid bad events related stimuli. It is the basic tool used in explaining the getting hold of the traumatic fear response to the patient (Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006). Negative reinforcement targets on avoiding or eliminating what was initially bothering someone with an aim of attaining the best behavior (Iwata, 1987). For example, an individual who happened to be involved in an accident and got to witness loved ones and friends perish away. Such an incident lives the individual traumatized and hence need for psychological intervention. Negative reinforcement is also used to maintain order and boost the behavior of patients. For example, a person who takes long to take a shower until the society complains, most probably has a psychological problem. In order to help this person, the clinical psychologist uses the negative reinforcement strategy to help this person. The psychologist puts this person to a shower and requests the patient to shower. Showering helps in removing the bad odor, from the patient and thus his or her acceptability in the society. In psychiatric hospitals, and prisons, clinical psychologists use negative reinforcement to promote law and order. Unwanted behavior is managed by withdrawal of privileges that been introduced to them such as watching television and listening to music. (A) Classical and operant conditioning Classical conditioning is the voluntarily response depicted by ones body. For example, when one touches hot coal, a voluntary response is depicted by the withdrawal of the hand triggered by ones reflex. It acts like a survival intuition. The classical conditioning is of the idea that people develop certain stimuli that do not occur naturally. To show how behaviors are shaped by combining of stimulus, Pavlov, paired a bell sound with meat powder meant for dogs. He found out that even when meat powder was absent, but the bell rang, the dog would still salivate. He concluded that meat powder that led to the dog salivating were voluntary stimulus that resulted to voluntary response. On the other hand, the bell that was used to condition the dog is the conditioned stimulus, and the salivation to the ring of the bell is the conditioned response. Thus, today the human behavior is shaped combining the stimuli. That is the 42year old man feels anxious and lacks sleep and also feels mood less, once he remembers the incident that befell him. This conditioning might result in the development of and maintenance of this man’s present difficulties. When this man gets to hear of the mention of a ferry or a person crying for help, he will always hear the echoes of cry, and the shouts made by his colleagues in the ferry. This is because he associates the ferry and the cries which make him generalize his response to those stimuli onto neutral stimuli. He witnessed his colleagues die, and thus, he might even develop a forbear of boarding on a ferry. He has already conditioned the ferry and people around him with the cries and shouts of help that he got to witness during that fateful day. Operant conditioning shows how people respond to the environment; the experience that one gets out of the natural consequences of one’s actions. To explain these actions, a cat was used as an example. A cat was enclosed in a cage with only one way out, whereby a particular area of the box had to be pressed. In its search for freedom, the cat presses the area and the door opens. Once enclosed again the cat will try and remember what it did to escape initially. This example of how the cat has learnt through experience to search for its freedom. In this case, the 42 year old man, is haunted by what he got go through. He feels guilty of not being capable to have rescued his partners. He tries to figure out if he were in that position once again how he could have saved his colleagues. This is the reason as to why he appears to be mood less at times, lacks sleep and feels nervous as he is enclosed in his own thoughts of how he would have rescued his friends. The operant conditioning holds in respect to the olds man problem, in that he feels he did a mistake, and if that chance was given to him again, he would not repeat the same mistake. In both conditions, there is a voluntarily condition that leads to involuntary condition. Thus, if the concern is not given to this man, his current situation might increase. (b) Behavioral therapy treatment. This problem can be solved through behavioral theory. Psychologists say that behaviors are acquired through conditioning, which occurs through interaction with the environment. A response to environment stimuli shapes ones behaviors. When one gets to face his problems than just avoiding and learning away from the problems keeps the mind relaxed and focused. The 42 year old man is suffering from nervousness/ anxiety. To fight off this symptom, he has to change his behavior. Negative reinforcement is used during the therapy of imposing traumatic fear in the patient. This can be done by repeating what worries him now and then. This technique is referred to as flooding by behavioral scientists. He should be advised to visit the place of the incident and try to figure out what happened as well as narrating to other people what befall him. It is hard to keep ones mind worrying if worries are constantly repeated. This behavioral method can be accompanied by relaxation techniques to keep ones mind and feelings calm. Nonetheless, the psychologist can make him watch a video that is quite related to the incident that befell him consistently until it becomes boring. With this, he will be comprehend his fears. Also, he can try to make his worries worse than they really are other than fighting to control them. He can narrate the Ordeal to his friends such as the type of people who had boarded the ferry (about how many women, children, men), what he first thought when he saw the ferry sinking; generally the main features that surrounded the incident and his reactions to them. This makes the story worse than he literally takes it (Hayes, 2004). The technique is referred to as ‘fake it’ ‘till you make it’. He can also try to remember all the alarms such as the cries, the shouts of help from his colleagues and the background noise. This will help the patient fight of his fears and prevent them from consuming him. Finally as, he still tries to fight the anxiety, he can focus on making peace with time; asking what he will be thinking in the next year to come. Time heals all problems as long as one stays positive, fear should not be let to deter one’s activities. Also, breathing in and out helps in the relaxation of ones muscles and mind. To ensure that he is focusing in everything that he does, positive and negative reinforcement can be introduced. Such as, rewarding him for every task that he completes, or removing the privileges given to him such as, eating food. This will try and reduce his symptoms on the lack of concentration as time goes by. REFERENCES Appel J, (1963). Aversive aspects of a schedule of positive reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 6, 423-430. Appel J, (1960). Some schedules involving aversive control. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,3, 349-359. Athabasca University (2010) positive reinforcement. Available at :< http://psych.athabascau.ca/html/prtut/> [accessed on 28TH April 2012] Cooper J, Heron T & Heward W. (2007). Applied Behaviour Analysis. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Devlin, S., Leader, G., & Healy, O., (2007). 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