Negative Reinforcement - Essay Example

Negative Reinforcement Negative Reinforcement is as important as positive reinforcement when studying the behavioral analysis of individuals. Immense amount of research studies have been conducted in studying the effects of negative reinforcement on the individual’s behavior. I was surprised to find out that stimulus change plays a vital role in analyzing the behavioral changes through negative reinforcement. The author Osborne has explicitly defined the negative reinforcement through conducting a case study on students regarding contingencies of free time (Iwata, 363).

The article also depicts that the individual may have an undesirable behavior through negative reinforcement. Individuals may become aggressive and disruptive; if at all the negative reinforcement attacks their ego and controlling power. In serious cases, individuals have been observed to become mentally retard due to negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement may emerge due to the environment and this further leads to inappropriate behaviors from the individuals. Negative reinforcement behavior can be treated through extinction, differential reinforcement, punishment and stimulus fading.

All of these treatments need to be conducted according to the seriousness of the behavior in individuals. Negative reinforcement may be considered in itself as a therapy for treating undesirable behaviors. This finding surprised me immensely, but on further reading of the article, different techniques such as behavioral engineering and overcorrection technique helps in treating the negative behaviors of individuals. Escape and avoidance are two of the most important and successful ways of treating disorders in behaviors due to negative reinforcement.

The research regarding the study of behaviors due to negative reinforcement has a lot of scope and many other dimensions can be catered on further research on this topic. The article reviews cases of students and children on how they may have undesirable behaviors due to negative reinforcement. These findings would help me in my future life when I deal with my children. Parenting is a very serious task that has to be faced by many of the individuals and this study has allowed me to understand the negative reinforcement behaviors and how the child should be treated if he/she has gone negative reinforcement.

Punishment may at times trigger the undesirable behavior in children which may lead to throwing tantrums and other sort of disruptive behavior. One can also learn how to teach children if they don’t understand any particular thing and also avoid negative reinforcement behavior in them. At a social level, all individuals are highly conscious about their behaviors and how they are being treated in the community or society. If individuals and children have undergone negative reinforcement, they need to be handled with patience and care at the societal level so that any type of negative reaction can be avoided.

This article has given me a useful insight on negative reinforcement behavior on individuals, how they should be treated and how the negative reinforcement can be taken as a therapy for treating individuals. It would help me in my future life when I come across any such individual or when I have to handle my kids in difficult circumstances. Work CitedIwata, Brian A. “Negative Reinforcement in Applied Behavior Analysis: An Emerging Technology”. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis. 20 (1987):361–378. Print.