now that you know what the true definition of reinforcement + punishment are, it’s important to clarify the terms positive and negative. These terms are also ones that already have common misconceptions in our everyday language. Positive = a good thing, and negative = a bad thing. However, this is not applicable to ABA.
Positive denotes the presentation of a stimulus – something that had not been there before the behavior.
Therefore, positive reinforcement occurs when after a behavior, something that was not there before is presented, and this causes the frequency of the behavior to increase in the future.
Example: Your dog is standing in front of you. You put some treats in your hand, and lift your hand up over the dog’s nose. This will cause your dog to bend his head as far back as possible until it will cause him to sit down. You then give him the treats. You repeat this one more time and the same thing happens. You remove the treats from your hand and just lift your empty hand, and your dog sits. Now every time you lift your hand in front of your dog, your dog sits.
In this case, the treats that are given to the dog after he sits, is the new stimulus that is presented (positive) and since the sitting behavior increases, it is reinforcement.
Negative denotes that something that was already in the environment is taken away.
Therefore, negative reinforcement occurs when after a behavior, something that was present in the environment is removed, and this causes the frequency of the behavior to increase in the future. This is usually associated with aversive stimuli.
Example: You get a mosquito bite on your leg, and it itches. A lot. You know you shouldn’t, but you scratch it. When you scratch it, the itching goes away and it feels good. So in the future, you scratch your mosquito bite more often to get rid of the itching.
In this scenario, the itch is the stimulus that is taken away (negative) by the behavior, and since scratching increases in the future, it is reinforcement.
Next post: Positive & Negative Punishment
the pink dog 