RESEARCH ON PUNISHMENT

Is Punishment the Opposite of Reinforcement?

Punishment should have the opposite effect on behavior as positive
reinforcement: Reinforcement should increase behavior, and
punishmentl should decrease behavior.

Based on these and other similar results, there is no doubt that suitably
intense punishment can produce a permanent deerease or
disappearance of the punished behavior.
 Factors Influencing the Effectiveness of
Punishment
Many years ago, Azrin and Holz (1966) examined a number of variables that determine
what eiects a punishment contingency will have. Several of their points are described in
this section

. Manner of Introduction
2. Immediacy of Punishment
Schedule of punishment
4. Motivation to respond
5. Availability of Altcrnative Behaviour
6. Punishment as a discriminative stimulus
1. Manner of Introduction -Tf one's
behavior then the
goal is to
obtain large. permanent
a

should be immediately introduced

decrease in some punisher
at its full
intensity.

2. Immediacy of Punishment punisher a

the
that
immediately
of
follows aThe
response most effective in decreasing frequency the response.
is
more immediate the punishment, the greater the deerease in responding.

3. Schedule of punishment- Like positive reinforcers. punishers need not be

delivered aler every occurence of a behavior. The most effective a y to
eliminate a behavior is to punish every response rather than to use some
intermittent schedule of punishmcnt.
4. Motivation to respond- the effectiveness of a punishment procedure is inversely
related to the intensity of the individual's motivatian to respond Punishment had little effect on
response rates when the pigeons were very hungry, but when these animals were only slighthy food
deprived, the same intensiry of punishment produced a complete cessation of responding. This
finding is not surprising, and its implications for human behavior should be clear. If a behavior is
highly motivated (e.g., parents stealing food because their children are starving). the threat of
punishment is not likely to have much effect.
5. Availability of Alternative Behaviour- punishment is much more
effective when the individual is providcd with an alternative way to obtain the
reinforcer. For instance, it is much easier to use punishment to stop a pigeon from
pecking ata response key that delivers food if another key is available that also
produces food (without punishment)
Punishment as a diseriminative stimulus-a punishercan somctime
function as a discriminative stimuli- a signal predicting the availability of
other stimuli, either pleasant or unpleasant .For ex- self-injurious behaviors
often bring to the individual the reinforcers of sympathy and attention, the
aversive aspccts of this typc of bchavior (pain) may serve as discriminativc stimuli
that reinforcement is imminent.
Disadvantages of Using Punishment
a punisnnen ccit several cemofional cifccts, such as fear
guard dogs thal hud been trained through the use olashock collarfound that these
dogs exhibited signs
when they were
of fear and stress whenever ther owner yas presenEven
not in the raining situation (Schilder & van der Borg. 2004).

Second. punishment can sometne n edImagine that a ofall

child inna
classroom raised his hand, asked aquesiion. and the teacher replied, "Well, that's a
he
very stupid question." The teacherremark might be, intended to try 1
that children ask, but the likcly result would
reduce
be a
number of stupid qucstions or bad, botih from that child and from cveryonc cIse
decreasc in qucstions, good
all
in the class
 A third disadvantage is that in real-world sinuations the usc of punishment
demands the continual moniloring of the
indiviadual's behavior. In conlrast,
use ol
remiorcement does nol necessanly demand such monitonng because it is in the
ndividual's interest to pointoutinstances of abehaviorthat is followed by a
renlorcer.llachild receives a renlorcer
the
tor cleaning up her room. she
the
will hand,
Probably make sure her parenis
the child is
see
room is it is cleaned.
aller
to call
On
her
otherto s e
T punished for messy room. she unikely
a
the messy room so that she can be
parents
punished.

ourth. practical problecm with the use of punishmentis that individuals may try
lcrument the rulescontrol
method o behavioral orescape lrom
in the thesitualion
classroom entirely Ifatheteacher's
is punishment, children primary
will
also try to avoid school
n d c eidence or any misbchav1or.
aogetnerby prelending to be sick or by
They may
playing hooky.

Another problem with using

punish1menttoisbethataround.
Cither the punisher or whocver
it can lead to aggression against
happcns