Reinforcement and Punishment

Some find it difficult to understand differences between positive and negative reinforcement, and often confuse negative reinforcement and punishment ... 

Using reinforcement and punishment with in-session material can do a great deal to modify your client s behavior, if done skillfully and respectfully. After... 

Types of Tolerance Explanations of Tolerance Behavioral Pharmacology Reinforcement and Punishment Operant Principles and Drug Dependence Drug Discrimination Conflict Paradigm... 

A research procedure that concerns the effects on a behavior of a drug that has a history of both reinforcement and punishment. 

Drug use has been shown to follow the operant principles of reinforcement and punishment. 

How can positive reinforcement and punishment be used in a behavior modification-oriented safety program Give examples. 

The effectiveness of each of the consequences is largely determined by how frequently it follows, or does not follow, each occurrence of the behaviour. These frequencies are referred to as schedules. There can, therefore, be differing schedules of both reinforcement and punishment. 

Consequences What built-in consequences support the desired and undesired behavior (Consider both reinforcement and punishment.) Are the employees more comfortable or able to conplete the job more quickly or easily by engaging in the unsafe act Are employees uncomfortable or less productive if they do the job safely Is it more work ... 

Delayed Outcomes What delayed outcomes should support the desired behavior (Consider both reinforcement and punishment.) What safety awards should support the safe act What effect does performing the unsafe act have on an employee s compensation or career ... 

Factors consistently mentioned as shaping self-esteem include communication techniques, reinforcement and punishment contingencies, and leadership styles. Participants suggest a number of ways to build self-esteem, including... 

Advise people at risk for problems of their risk status, and counsel them to avoid alcohol and drugs. Arrange the environment to reinforce nonabuse of substances do not reinforce, or punish, abuse provide models of appropriate substance use debunk m hs about alcohol and drugs teach nondrug alternatives for coping with stress. 

There are two conditions that have to be satisfied if punishment is to be effective - the behaviour is punished immediately after it occurs, and the behaviour is punished every time it occurs. In other words, if you want to use punishment as a way of influencing behaviour, you have to be in a position to catch every infringement and punish it immediately. If you wanted to use punishment, by itself, to get people to wear ear defenders, for example, you would have to have a manager watching every worker all the time they were at work and be ready to issue some form of punishment, even just a rebuke, every time they failed to put on their ear defenders in a noisy environment. Contrast this with the much easier requirement for keeping the behaviour (even undesirable behaviour) going, for example, variable ratio reinforcement ... 

Let us talk a little more about consequences. The strongest consequences are soon, sizable, and certain. In other words, we work diligently for immediate, probable, and large positive reinforcers or rewards, and we work frantically to escape or avoid soon, certain, and sizable negative reinforcers or punishers. This helps explain why safety is a struggle in many workplaces. You see, safe behaviors are usually not reinforced by soon, sizable, and certain consequences. In fact, safe behaviors are often punished by soon and certain... 

The most useful modality for dealing with the societal aspects of opiate abuse (as well as some of the medical and personal aspects) has been methadone maintenance. In consideration of the pharmacology of opiate dependence 4,17,45,58,87,88,131,140,172,185 Dole and Nyswander 51 proposed that maintenance of opiate addicts on relatively large doses of oral methadone would inhibit drug seeking behavior, "block" the subjective effects of parenteral heroin injection because of the tolerance induced, break the needle habit because of lack of reinforcement by this route, and make the addict more available for psychiatric treatment and rehabilitation, breaking the cycle of crime and punishment. Methadone maintenance has been... 

Public education is a primary tool in current speed moderation strategies in Australia, but needs supplementing with additional messages. One common theme is to raise the level of knowledge about the effects of small increases in impact speed on crash likelihood and injury severity. A second theme is to emphasise the probability of detection and punishment. The third common theme is to stress the effects of severe injury on lifestyle. While all are appropriate, they run the risk of reinforcing the unpopularity of intense enforcement of low-level speeding. 

In this chapter, we have reviewed the effects of indolealkylamine and phen-ylalkylamine hallucinogens on respondent (classical or Pavlovian) and operant (instrumental) behavior. Both the classically conditioned NMR and bar pressing or licking that is simultaneously reinforced with food or water and suppressed by punishment appear to be particularly sensitive to low doses of LSD- or mescaline-like agents. To date, however, neither of these behaviors has provided substantial amounts of information regarding specific, underlying neuronal mechanisms. 

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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