Positive and Negative Reinforcement: What They Mean

Positive reinforcement is a process that increases the likelihood of a response by adding something. Conversely, negative reinforcement increases the likelihood of a response by removing or reducing something.

In psychology, the concept of reinforcement is studied under operant conditioning. Reinforcement means an action in which the experimenter tries to control the reinforcement. Reinforcement refers to stimuli that increase the rate of response. Reinforcement can be positive or negative. Both of them increase the repeatability of responses, but using different methods.

Reinforcement is used to help increase the likelihood that a particular behavior will occur in the future by delivering or removing a stimulus immediately after the behavior. In other words, the right reinforcement will lead to more frequent behavior in the future.

Positive reinforcement works by providing a motivating or reinforcing stimulus to the individual after the desired behavior has been performed, making the behavior more likely in the future. Positive reinforcement can be understood as the process of rewarding an approved behavior by offering a reward as a stimulus when the behavior is exhibited. Once an action is performed, it results in a positive response. Then the response tends to intensify.

It should be noted that positive encouragement can be different for different people, as praise from a manager may act as an effective encouragement for some employees, but not for all, as a promotion or a raise may be an encouragement for others.

Negative reinforcement occurs when a particular stimulus (usually an aversive one) is removed after a particular behavior is exhibited. The likelihood that a particular behavior will be repeated in the future increases due to the elimination or avoidance of negative consequences. In short, negative reinforcement involves the application of an aversive stimulus. This is also known as escape or avoidance learning as the reinforcement is negative, and the person tries to escape or avoid it.

Negative reinforcement should not be viewed as a punishment procedure. With negative reinforcement, you reinforce the behavior, and with punishment, you decrease it.

Stimuli involved in positive reinforcement have pleasurable results. Conversely, with negative reinforcement, stimuli can have unpleasant or even painful consequences. With positive reinforcement, stimuli act as a reward for doing something, while with negative reinforcement, stimuli act as a punishment for not doing something.

When thinking about rewards, always remember that the end result is an attempt to reinforce behavior, while punishment procedures are used to reduce the behavior. As for positive reinforcement, think of it as adding something positive to reinforce the response. As for negative reinforcement, think of it as taking something negative away to increase the response.