What is positive or negative reinforcement in Psychology?

Two of the most important concepts of behavioral psychology, explained in detail.

B. F. Skinner, one of the key theorists of the behaviorist orientation, defined reinforcement as a type of learning based on the association of a behavior with the consequences derived from it, which increase or decrease the probability that it will be performed again. When they are negative, we speak of punishment, and when they are positive, of reinforcement.

Within learning by reinforcement we distinguish two types of consequences: positive and negative reinforcement.. While positive reinforcement occurs when the behavior involves obtaining a reward, negative reinforcement consists of the avoidance or withdrawal of an aversive stimulus. Let's see the main characteristics of both procedures.

Reinforcement and operant conditioning

The concepts of "positive reinforcement" and "negative reinforcement" are part of the instrumental or operant conditioning paradigm. are framed in the paradigm of instrumental or operant conditioning.. Unlike classical or Pavlovian conditioning, in which the association between a stimulus and a response is learned, in instrumental conditioning the subject associates the performance of a behavior with certain consequences.

Operant conditioning emerged from the work of the behaviorists Edward Thorndike, who studied the process by which cats managed to escape from "problem-boxes", and Burrhus F. Skinner, who systematically described the characteristics of this learning procedure and applied it to various fields, especially education.

Skinner distinguished three types of instrumental learningThe following procedures are used: punishment, which consists in the appearance of an aversive stimulus after the execution of the behavior, omission, in which the response is associated with the absence of reward, and reinforcement, in which the behavior is rewarded. Within this procedure we find positive and negative reinforcement.

In the framework of operant conditioning, the consequences of behavior can be positive or negative for the recipient; however, this differentiation is not what separates positive from negative reinforcement, but rather that when the behavior has appetitive consequences we speak of reinforcement, and of punishment when they are aversive.and punishment when they are aversive.

When we refer to reinforcement or punishment, the terms "positive" and "negative" do not refer to the pleasantness of the consequence, but to the appearance or disappearance of a stimulus. appearance or disappearance of a given stimulusPositive reinforcement is learning that you will get a reward if you do something, and negative reinforcement is learning that you will avoid or eliminate an unpleasant stimulus.

What is positive reinforcement?

In learning by positive reinforcement, the performance of a behavior is associated with obtaining a pleasant consequence. This does not necessarily have to be an object, not even a tangible oneThe following are all examples of positive reinforcement in many contexts: food, substances, a smile, a verbal message or the appearance of a pleasant emotion.

A father who congratulates his young daughter every time she uses the toilet correctly reinforces positive reinforcement learning; the same happens when a company awards financial bonuses to its most productive workers, and even when we get a bag of potato chips after putting a coin in a vending machine.

The concept of "positive reinforcement" refers to the reward that follows the behavior. that follows the behavior, while positive reinforcement is the reward that follows the behavior, while positive reinforcement is the reward that follows the behavior.The concept of "positive reinforcement" refers to the reward that follows the behavior, while positive reinforcement is the procedure by which the learner makes the association. However, the terms "reinforcement" and "reinforcement" are often used interchangeably, probably because there is no such distinction in English.

From a technical point of view we can say that in positive reinforcement there is a positive contingency between a particular response and an appetitive stimulus. Awareness of this contingency motivates the subject to perform the behavior in order to obtain the reward (or reinforcement).

Defining negative reinforcement

In contrast to what happens in positive reinforcement, in negative reinforcement the instrumental response entails the disappearance of an aversive stimulus, i.e., an object or situationthat is, an object or situation that motivates the subject to escape or to try not to come into contact with it.

In behavioral terms, in this procedure the reinforcement is the disappearance or non-appearance of the aversive stimulation. As previously mentioned, the word "negative" refers to the fact that the reward does not consist of obtaining a stimulus but of its absence.

This type of learning is in turn divided into two procedures: escape training and avoidance training. In negative avoidance reinforcement the behavior prevents the occurrence of the aversive stimulus; for example, when an agoraphobic person avoids using public transport to avoid the anxiety it causes, he/she is being negatively reinforced.

In contrast, escape consists of the disappearance of an aversive stimulus that is present before the subject performs the behavior. Some examples of negative reinforcement of escape are that an alarm clock stops at the push of a button, that a mother buys her child what she asks for to stop crying, or that consuming an analgesic relieves pain.