Learning and Behavior 7th Edition Paul

Chance Solutions Manual

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 8

Operant Learning: Punishment

Chapter Outline
Preview
Beginnings
Types of Punishment
Aversive Confusion: Positive Punishment and Negative Reinforcement
Variables Affecting Punishment
Contingency/Contiguity/Intensity/Introductory Level of Punisher/Reinforcement of
the Punished Behavior/Alternative Sources of Reinforcement/Motivating
Operations/Other variables
Theories of Punishment
Two-process theory/One-process theory
Problems with Punishment
Alternatives to Punishment
A Final Word
Recommended Reading
Review Questions
Practice Quiz
Query Answers

Main Points

Use of punishment is widespread; although it is used less and less by psychologists as a treatment
tool, it is frequently used by parents, teachers, employers, supervisors, legislators, international
bodies, and others. It is important to understand a procedure that plays so prominent a role in our
lives. A distinction can be made between positive and negative punishment; although the terms are
troublesome, they are analogous to positive and negative reinforcement. Punishment and negative
reinforcement both involve aversives, but punishment reduces the frequency of behavior whereas
negative reinforcement strengthens it. The variables affecting punishment include contingency and
contiguity, the intensity of the punisher, the initial level of intensity, and alternative means of
obtaining reinforcement. Attempts to explain punishment include two-process and one-process
theories. Punishment can produce unwanted side-effects: escape, aggression, apathy, abuse, and
imitation of the punisher. Alternatives to punishment include response prevention, extinction, and
various forms of differential reinforcement.

68 CHAPTER 8
Class Notes

Beginnings. One problem with including a chapter on punishment is that it may actually increase
the tendency of students to use it. I have therefore attempted to stress the negative aspects of
punishment.

Types of Punishment. It should be noted that punishment always works, by definition. A punisher
is defined by its effects on behavior, not by its apparent aversiveness. Studies of punishment may
often underestimate its effects. This is because punishment is usually studied in combination with
reinforcement. For instance, a researcher may punish lever pressing that is reinforced with food.
This is done because if the behavior resulted only in aversive consequences, it would not persist.

I include the box on the difference between positive punishment and negative reinforcement
because many students (and some psychologists) routinely confuse the two. It may be well worth
spending some time discussing this to make sure your students grasp the difference.

Variables affecting punishment. The Training Game (see Chapter 5) can be used to demonstrate
the effects of varying levels of punishment, punishment delays, and other variables.

Exercise: The Punishment Game

Ask the students to shape the behavior of a volunteer (as in the exercises in Chapter 5 and 6), but
instead of reinforcing successive approximations, punish “inappropriate” behavior. Every time
the volunteer does anything that is not an approximation of the desired behavior, students should
shout, “No!” Learning usually proceeds very slowly, if at all. The exercise illustrates that
punishment teaches what not to do, not what to do. (Eventually the student may escape the
aversives by performing the desired behavior, so response acquisition is probably due to negative
reinforcement rather than to punishment.) After a few minutes, ask the class to switch from
punishment to positive reinforcement of successive approximations. Typically the behavior
shapes up quickly. The contrast in the effectiveness of the two procedures as ways of shaping
behavior is impressive.

Theories of punishment. The theories of punishment are essentially the same one-process and
two-process theories connected with avoidance.

Problems with punishment. It may be worthwhile to have a class discussion about the distinction
between abuse and punishment. Elsewhere (Chance, 1998) I argue that if a procedure causes
prolonged discomfort or risks permanent injury, it is abuse, not punishment. To some extent the
complaints about the clinical use of punishment may be due to a failure to distinguish clearly
between punishment and abuse.

PUNISHMENT 69
Alternatives to punishment. I begin this section with response prevention because it is often the
most desirable and simplest solution to the problem of unwanted behavior. The use of
noncontingent reinforcement as an alternative to punishment is exciting, but it seems to me there
is considerable risk of misuse by students since “noncontingent” rewards can unintentionally
reinforce undesirable behavior.
Punishment is probably most often abused when the unwanted behavior is reinforced in
some way. (If there were no reinforcement contingency, it is unlikely the behavior would occur
often enough to be a problem.) It is therefore important that students understand the value of
identifying the reinforcers that maintain an undesirable behavior before attempting to modify the
behavior.

Exercise: Finding Alternatives

Provide examples of everyday situations (child rearing, teaching, employee absenteeism,

etc.) involving behavior that people try to change using aversives. (For instance, a
roommate repeatedly fails to lock the door when leaving. Typically we lecture, nag, and
perhaps threaten bodily harm.) Then ask students to work in pairs or groups of three to
come up with non-aversive alternatives. (For example, the roommate problem might be
solved through response prevention by installing a lock that automatically locks the door
whenever it is closed.) Share the various solutions to the problems.

A Final Word. I think it is well worth encouraging students to observe the focus that many
people place on punishing unwanted behavior rather than reinforcing wanted behavior. A
homework assignment in which student pairs observe people interacting in a natural setting and
count the number of aversive acts following undesirable behavior and the number of positive acts
following desirable behavior. For example, students might observe parents and children interact
in a bus terminal, teachers and students interacting in a classroom, or workers and their
supervisors interact in a factory. Reports on their findings should lead to an interesting class
discussion.

Recommended Reading
I think Cipani’s book, Punishment on Trial, deserves mentioning in class, particularly since it is
available without charge online. Cipani defends the use of punishment, but shows how it can be
used effectively in a humane manner.

70 CHAPTER 8
Key to Review Questions

1. Define the following terms:

Differential reinforcement: Any of several procedures in which reinforcement of a desired

behavior or rate is combined, when possible, with extinction of an unwanted behavior. (It`s
important to note to students that the goal of differential reinforcement is to reduce the
frequency of an unwanted behavior, usually without punishing that behavior.)
DRA: A form of differential reinforcement in which reinforcement is made available for a
specified alternative to an unwanted behavior.
DRI: A form of differential reinforcement in which a behavior that is incompatible with an
unwanted behavior is systematically reinforced.
DRL: A form of differential reinforcement in which reinforcement is provided only when the
behavior occurs at a specified low rate.
Negative punishment: A form of punishment in which a behavior is followed by the removal
of, or a decrease in the intensity of, a stimulus.
Penalty training: Another name for negative punishment.
Positive punishment: A punishment procedure in which a behavior is followed by the
presentation of, or an increase in the intensity of, a stimulus.
Punisher: Any consequence of a behavior that decreases the strength of that behavior.
Punishment: A decrease in the strength of a behavior due to its consequences.
Response prevention: The procedure of altering the environment so as to prevent unwanted
behavior from occurring.
Time Out: Short for time out from positive reinforcement, this is a form of penalty training in
which the subject is removed from a situation in which unwanted behavior is reinforced.
(Typically TO is used with pre-school and elementary school age children. It is worth noting
to students that some educators (including education instructors) advocate a procedure they
call Time Out, but which is very different: The teacher removes a misbehaving student from
the location where misbehavior occurs, and then spends time with the student or provides
alternative sources of reinforcement. The result of this is likely to be more misconduct, since
misbehaving has positive consequences.)

2. Why do people rely so much on punishment?

Lots of answers are possible, but the hope is that students will look to the consequences of
using punishment, rather than attribute causes to “character” (e.g., “People are mean”).
Punishment is used because it usually has immediate, reinforcing consequences for the
punisher.

3. What is the key difference between positive and negative punishment?

Students have a hard time giving up the circular idea that positive reinforcement involves
“positive” events and negative reinforcement involves “negative” events. The actual
distinction has to do with whether something is added to the situation or removed from it.

PUNISHMENT 71
4. What is the key difference between negative reinforcement and punishment?

One answer is that negative reinforcement increases a response whereas punishment

suppresses it. Some students may say that negative reinforcement means the removal of an
aversive stimulus, while punishment means the addition of an aversive. One problem with this
answer is that there are two kinds of punishment, and this distinction applies only to type 1
punishment.

5. Why is it important to use extinction in conjunction with differential reinforcement?

The reinforcing consequences of an undesirable behavior will tend to undermine the effects of
differential reinforcement. For example, if a teacher provides reinforcing consequences for a
student when working at his desk, that will tend to reduce the tendency to wander around.
However, if there are reinforcing consequences (such as teacher attention) for wandering
around the room, these consequences will compete with the consequences for sitting at a desk.
Eliminating (or at least reducing) the reinforcing consequences of unwanted behavior is
therefore an important part of differential reinforcement.

6. How might David Premack define a punisher?

For Premack, a reinforcing stimulus is any relatively high-probability behavior. An aversive

stimulus would then be any relatively low-probability behavior.

7. People often say they seek "open, honest relationships." Why are such relationships so rare?

The phrase implies saying hurtful things. (E.g., “I hate to say this, but that dress makes you
look fat.”) Although not meant to injure, such comments are nevertheless apt to be punitive.
Punishment has negative side effects, including the tendency to retaliate. (E.g., “Thank you
for telling me. By the way, did you cut your own hair, or were you in an accident?”) There
may also be a tendency toward escalation, which is not conducive to friendship.

8. What is the key difference between the two-process and one-process theories of punishment?

This is straight from the text: One-process theory relies on operant learning; two-process
theory relies on Pavlovian conditioning as well as operant learning.

9. Why do you suppose it took researchers so long to appreciate the power of punishment?

It is difficult to say, since everyday experience would seem to convince us that punishment is
powerful. Perhaps the fact that early work by prominent researchers (particularly Thorndike
and Skinner) showed only temporary effects made it difficult for others to take contrary
views.

72 CHAPTER 8
 10. Five-year-old Mary has misbehaved. Her father spanks her and sends her to her room. Has
Mary been punished?

The definition of punishment requires that the behavior involved occur less often; the
question does not provide that information so it is impossible to say if Mary was punished. It
can also be argued that behaviors are punished, not people, so that Mary has not been
punished regardless of the change in her behavior.

Key to Practice Quiz

1. The first formal studies of punishment were probably done by Thorndike around the turn of
the century.

2. Positive punishment and negative reinforcement are often mistakenly thought to refer to the
same procedure.

3. In a DRL 10” schedule, the effect of pressing a lever after eight seconds is to delay
reinforcement/restart the 10” timer.

4. According to the two-process theory, punishment involves two procedures: Pavlovian and
operant learning.

5. Punishment is more likely to be effective if the individual has alternative means of obtaining
the reinforcement that maintains the punished behavior.

6. David Camp and his colleagues found that a delay of 30 seconds greatly reduced the effects of
contingent shock. They found that even a delay of two seconds made shocks less effective.

7. In using punishment, it is best to begin with a punisher that is slightly stronger than the
minimum required to suppress the behavior.

8. The fact that an annoying behavior occurs implies that it has reinforcing consequences.

9. Five problems are associated with punishment. Three of these problems are
escape/aggression/apathy/abuse/imitation (any three of the foregoing).

10. One way of reducing the frequency of an unwanted behavior is to use DRI, which stands for
differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior.

PUNISHMENT 73
 Chapter 8 Quiz: Operant Learning: Punishment

1. Five problems are associated with punishment. Three of these problems are

___________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________.

2. David Camp and his colleagues found that even a _________-second delay in punishment

reduced its effectiveness.

3. Negative punishment is also called __________ training.

4. One alternative to punishment is response _______________.

5. Positive punishment necessarily involves ________________.

6. ___________________________ is often an appropriate alternative to punishment, but it is

often slow.

7. Punishers are defined by their effects on ________________.

8. Punishment is often confused with _____________________ reinforcement.

9. Differential reinforcement of ________________ behavior is the procedure of reinforcing

behavior that cannot be performed at the same time as the unwanted behavior.

10. Differential reinforcement is used in combination with ________________________ of the

unwanted behavior.

74 CHAPTER 8
 Key to Chapter 8 Quiz

1. Five problems are associated with punishment. Three of these problems are
escape/aggression/apathy/abuse/imitation (any three of the forgoing).

2. David Camp and his colleagues found that even a two-second delay in punishment reduced its
effectiveness.

3. Negative punishment is also called penalty training.

4. One alternative to punishment is response prevention.

5. Positive punishment necessarily involves aversives.

6. Extinction is often an appropriate alternative to punishment, but it is often slow.

7. Punishers are defined by their effects on behavior.

8. Punishment is often confused with negative reinforcement.

9. Differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior is the procedure of reinforcing behavior

that cannot be performed at the same time as the unwanted behavior.

10. Differential reinforcement is used in combination with extinction of the unwanted behavior.

PUNISHMENT 75