the foundation: reinforcers & punishers

There are two classes of reinforcers & punishers: unconditioned and conditioned.

Unconditioned reinforcers & punishers are those that are innately reinforcing or punishing to us. As in, ones that do not require any learning. Some examples of unconditioned reinforcers include food, water, oxygen, and sex. Some unconditioned punishers are extreme temperatures, food (when you are full), eating, and pain.

Conditioned reinforcers & punishers are those that have been paired with other reinforcers or punishers in the past so in themselves have become reinforcing or punishing. These conditioned stimuli vary from person to person. While one stimulus can be a reinforcer for me, it may be punishing to another person. Conditioned reinforcers can be just as powerful as unconditioned ones. An example of a personal conditioned reinforcer is jewelry. An example of a personal conditioned punisher is cheese (blech).

Dog trainers use a lot of unconditioned (treats) and conditioned (clickers) reinforcers. Usually the conditioned reinforcer is paired with food and thus becomes a reinforcer. However, this in no way has to be a clicker – one could also use one’s voice or a hand motion.

More on clicker training coming up in our next training tips post!

the foundation: positive + negative reinforcement

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 foundation: reinforcement + punishment

When most people are faced with the terms reinforcement and punishment, they say that reinforcement is “good” and punishment is “bad”. In our language, this is true – reinforcement has a positive connotation, while punishment has a very negative one.

The Oxford English Dictionary provides the following “psychological” definition of reinforcement:

The action or an act of establishing or strengthening of a particular response to a stimulus or a learnt behaviour through the repetition of a rewarding or unpleasant event contingent on the response.

YES! I was so excited to see that ABA-accurate definition in there.

Unfortunately, though, the OED’s “psychological” definition for punishment is not as good as the one for reinforcement:

The infliction of an unpleasant stimulus, as pain, deprivation, etc., on an organism as a method of behavioural control, so that unwanted forms of behaviour are suppressed and the desired behaviour pattern is established.

That’s more of an everyday definition that we use.

In order to understand the basics of ABA, it is essential that you know that reinforcement means increasing the future probability of a behavior contingent on a response. punishment means decreasing the future probability of a behavior contingent on a response.

Note how the only difference is either increasing or decreasing the behavior. There is no “good”, “bad”, “right”, or “wrong” associated with either of the terms in ABA.

Let’s say you have a plant, and you water it every other day. The plant stays healthy and green (what you want). As a result, you continue to water your plant every other day. Therefore, your behavior of watering the plant every other day is reinforced by the plant’s apparent health. But, again, reinforcement is not always associated with favorable situations.

Let’s say you have a son, and you are shopping at Toys `R Us for a present for the child’s friend. Your child sees a brand new Bakugan toy and asks you to buy it for him. You say “no”. Your son then throws himself on the floor, cries, and yells “I WANT THE TOY!!!!!” repeatedly. You then groan “fine~” and buy it for him. On future shopping trips, you find that if you say “no”, your child automatically throws a tantrum. Voila! Your child’s tantrum behavior is now reinforced by you giving him what he wants.

On the flip side, you water your plant every other day. The plant starts to wilt and becomes yellow. You think that your watering schedule is affecting the plant’s health, so you stop watering the plant every other day. Therefore, your behavior of watering the plant every other day is punished by the plant’s rotting. Similar to the reinforcement examples, punishment does not always have to be associated with adverse situations.

Now that your son throws a tantrum every time he wants something in a store, you are almost at the point where you don’t want to take him anywhere. So you decide to put your foot down and you just won’t take anymore of this! The next time you are in a store, your son throws a tantrum over a candy bar. You ignore his tantrumming and take him straight out of the store. After two more events like this, you notice that your son’s tantrums are diminishing. Therefore, you have punished his behavior of tantrumming. Congratulations! See, just because you punished the behavior, doesn’t mean you were a horrible parent or inflicted pain or physical trauma to your son.

Whew! I know this is a lot, but I hope you guys are still following along!

Next post: Positive + Negative Reinforcement/Punishment