The concept of reinforcement means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer

anything stimulus which strengthens or increase the chances of a specific response

For example, if you want your dog to sit on command, you may give him a meat every time
he sits for you. The dog will learn that when someone asked to sit then he will be going to
give meat. This meat is reinforcing because he likes it and will result in him sitting when
instructed to do so.
Positive Reinforcement
Giving a positive response when an individual shows positive and required behaviour. Think
of it as adding something in order to increase a response.
For example: Giving the workers a reward for coming up early for work. This would
increase the chance that outstanding behavior will occur again. Reward is a positive
reinforcement. Adding reward will increase your child's chances of cleaning his room
Negative Reinforcement Negative reinforcement as taking something negative away in
order to increase a response.
For Example: one morning you leave your home and got stuck in heavy traffic, next
morning you leave home earlier than normal and avoid heavy traffic Your behaviour of
leaving home earlier is strengthened by the consequence of the avoidance of heavy traffic.
Punishment Reinforcement:
Punishment refers to adding something aversive in order to decrease a behavior. Spanking a
student for misbehaving
For example:
Positive punishment
when a student talks out of turn in the middle of class, the teacher might scold the child for
interrupting
Negative punishment
when the student from the previous example talks again, the teacher tells the student that they
will have to miss recess because of their behavior
Continuous reinforcement
Reinforcement in which every response is reinforced e.g. every time the rat pushed the liver it
gets food
Partial reinforcement
In partial reinforcement, the response is reinforced only part of the time. Learned behaviors
are acquired more slowly with partial reinforcement, but the response is more resistant to
extinction
Fixed ratio scheduled
Reinforcement happens after a set of number of Reponses, such as when a car salesman earns
a bonus after every three cars, he sells
In many video games, you have to collect so many tokens, object, or points in order to receive some
type of reward.

Variable ratio scheduled

Reinforcement happen after a particular average of responses, for example, a person trying to
win a game by getting heads on a coin toss gets heads every two time, on a average, that he
tosses a penny.
Call centres often offer random bonuses to employees. Workers never know how many calls
they need to make to receive the bonus, but they know that they increase their chances the
more calls or sales they make.
Fixed interval scheduled
Reinforcement happen after a set amount of time, such as when an attorney at a law firm gets
a bonus one a year
Variable interval scheduled
Reinforcement happen after a particular average of time. For example, a boss who want to
keep her employee working productively might walk by their work station and check on them
periodically usually one a day, but sometime twice a day, so there is a variable interval
between their boss appearance, they must stay on task to avoid a reprimand