The key to understanding Operant Conditioning (Behaviorism) is to remember it\'s

Question

The key to understanding Operant Conditioning (Behaviorism) is to remember it's about the consequences of our behaviors. If we do the behavior more often, the behavior was reinforced. If we do it less often, it was punished. Suppose a little girl draws on the wall and her mother yells at her and tells her how terrible she is. Later, if the girl draws on the wall more often, her mother's treatment of her was not a punishment but a reinforcement. (Maybe she was so lonely she enjoyed her mother paying attention to her even if it was just to yell at her!) You have to look at a child's ongoing behavior after a parent administers a "punishment" to determine if that's what it actually was. Check out this classic scenario from Schaeffer, 1997: Julio sees his Dad playing with his sister Rita in front of the TV. Julio is jealous and wants them to stop so he starts whining that he wants to use the TV to play with his video game. The father can do many things: (1) He can hug Julio and say it's OK, he loves him, and include him in the playtime. If, in the future, Julio ends up whining more to try to get his way, the father definitely reinforced that behavior. We call it positive because the father added something to the situation, a hug (not because a hug is good but because something new was added to the situation). So in this case the father gave a positive reinforcement. (2) The father could call Julio a "cry baby" and try to embarrass him. If Julio whines less in the future, this was a punishment. We call it positive because something new was added to the situation, in this case an insult. So it was positive punishment. (3) The father could take away Julio's video game for two weeks. If Julio whines less in the future, it was a punishment. Since something was taken away, we call it negative. So it was negative punishment. (4) The father could simply stop playing with Rita. If Julio whines more in the future, it was

Explanation / Answer

Since the mother is using negative reinforcement by coercion it could lead to development of anti social behaviour in children. Since the mother is using intimidation to stop the children from fighting,the same would backfire and make children use this against other children in school. They would start using intimidation in the wrong way and could become bullies. This kind of a family environment can lead to development of aggressive behaviour in children as well;where they would start enjoying using fear and anger as a weapon to overcome the dysregulation in the family. They would become insecure and start using this initimidation as a weapon to overcome their insecurities. The emergence and persistence of conduct problems during early childhood is a robust predictor of behavior problems in school and future maladaptation. Although in early childhood noncompliance and aggression are common, caregivers' emotional and ineffective reactions can inadvertently lead to increases in conflict that provide fertile ground for children to learn to be generally oppositional. Thus, in this context, children may become openly defiant in a family context in which she or he has learned to “shut off” demands that are unpleasant or unrewarding. This kind of negative reinforcement would also lead to arrested development of critical social and academic skills leading to increased exposure to risk processes and decreased exposure to prosocial learning opportunities downstream in early adolescent development.

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