Positive Behavior Reinforcement

Positive behavior reinforcement is one of the vital ingredients to safety success, especially to safety culture change interventions. Of all the efforts and functions carried out by leadership, positive behavior reinforcanent is likely to have the greatest effect on the success of the safety systan and consequent culture change. 

Incentives should never be in the form of cash and should never be linked in any way to injuries they should be small tokeus of appreciation (sometimes even a simple handshake) that are given to employees who participate in positive safety actions. Examples are  

Acknowledging employees is vital to the success of the system. The power of a small gesture of thanks and recognition cannot be overstated in its importance in bringing about safety culture change. 

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Health and safety representatives, safety coordinators, and supervisors should be given ownership of this positive behavior reinforcement program. They should have a supply of tokens of Meal for Two tickets to award safe behavior. A Meal for Two ticket is simply a preprinted voucher that contains the following message ... 

A traditional Behavior-Based Safety process identifies critical behavior, then establishes management processes that reinforce positive behaviors. 

Behavior modification is not new, although some would lead you to believe differently. The basic process involves systematically reinforcing positive behavior while at the same time ignoring or exercising negative reinforcements to eliminate unwanted behavior. There are two primary approaches used in behavior modification programs. One is an attempt... 

When you offer frequent rewards, such as on a weekly basis, it allows you to keep safety awareness and your accident reduction goals in front of the employees constantly while reinforcing positive behaviors and building a safety culture. 

The Principle of Behavior Reinforcement—behavior with negative effects tends to decrease or stop behavior with positive effects tends to continue or increase. 

Sometimes, employees will do work in one way because they know that if they do in another way, they will have negative consequences. In this way, their behaviors are reinforced by avoidance learning (Courtland et al. 1993). Negative reinforcement, however, can offset positive punishment reinforcement. Sometimes, positive values of co-workers are so great which lead the workers to accept punishment instead (Schermerhoen et al. 2003). In order to achieve some of the companies objectives and implement new innovative policies, newly implemented policies are usually associated with penalties for those violators. 

Ongoing experiments with methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) show a systematic dose-dependent decrease in attack and threat behavior in mice confronting an intruder into their homecage (Miczek et al., unpublished observations). The decrement in aggressive behavior appears to be behaviorally specific it is obtained at MDMA doses (0.3, 1, 3 mg/kg) that are lower than those necessary to decrease measures of conditioned performance under the control of schedules of positive reinforcement. Because of species-dependent neurotoxicity, MDMA s effects on aggressive behavior need to be explored in other species, including primates. 

Nicotine has a wide range of effects on behavior in humans and individual response to nicotine may predict predisposition to addiction. Some individuals may be genetically more likely to be hypersensitive to nicotine and, therefore, find it aversive others may be more positively reinforced by nicotine and seek to repeat the stimulus. Genetically modified animals are increasingly important tools for elucidating the molecular mechanisms involved in addiction. 

Reinforcement is something that happens after a behavior that makes it likely that the behavior will be repeated, and it can be both positive and negative. Reinforcement is different than punishment. Reinforcement encourages repeating a behavior, whereas punishment discourages repeating a behavior. 

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