Behavior management is based on the theory of operant conditioning. In operant conditioning, consequences are divided into reinforcers and punishers, which are further divided into positive and negative. A reinforcement increases a behavior and a punishment decreases a behavior.
A positive consequence is the application of something, whereas a negative consequence is the removal of something. No matter what you may think a consequence should be, unless the behavior actually increases or decreases, then you have not actually reinforced or punished the behavior. A parent may ground a child for missing curfew, but if the child continues to come in late, then grounding is not really a punishment.
Positive Reinforcement
A positive reinforcement is something applied after a behavior occurs that increases the occurrence of that behavior in the future. A frequently used example is a sticker chart where a student receives a sticker each time he engages in a target behavior, which then increases over time. Positive reinforcement can also increase behaviors that you may not like. For example, if a child eventually gets what she wants when she whines about it, then the whining behavior is likely to increase.
Negative Reinforcement
Negative reinforcement also increases behavior occurrence; however, it occurs through the removal of something negative or aversive. Using the previous example, a child's whining can be very aversive to a parent. Therefore, a parent may be negatively reinforced for giving into a child's demands because as soon as she gets what she wants, the whining stops. The parent is then more likely to give into the child the next time to stop the whining again. This can create a viscous cycle in which the whining is positively reinforced and giving into the whining is negatively reinforced.
Positive Punishment
A positive punishment is something applied after a certain behavior occurs that decreases the occurrence of that behavior. An example of this is requiring a child to write sentences such as "I will not talk in class." If the child stops talking in class, then writing sentences works as a positive punishment for the child.
Negative Punishment
A negative punishment is when something is removed or taken away in order to decrease a behavior. For example, when a child comes home with a note from the teacher for talking in class, her mother takes away her television time that evening. If the child then stops talking in class, losing television time has worked as a negative punishment.
