Positive punishment and negative punishment: how are they different and how do they work?

Positive punishment and negative punishment: do you know exactly what these two learning procedures consist of? Do you know how they differ? What are they used for? In this article we will describe what the punishment procedure entails and what is required for it to be effective.

In addition, we will explain the differences between both methods, examples of them and how each of them is applied. We will emphasize those methods that are usually applied in childhood and neurodevelopmental disorders. These can be applied by both parents and educators, teachers and psychologists. Of course, it is advisable to know them well so that they are effective and, above all, not harmful to the boy or girl.

Positive punishment and negative punishment: how are they different and how do they work?

Punishment is a behavior modification technique based on behavioral theories, more precisely on operant conditioning, and is based on the idea that the consequences of a behavior affect its execution and its frequency of appearance. That is, the punishment consists in intentionally administering an unwanted consequence, contingent on the person’s response. For punishment to be effective, it must be immediate, intense, sudden, not gradual and inevitable.

How are positive punishment and negative punishment different? Basically in that the positive implies the appearance of a stimulus (aversive) and the negative implies the withdrawal or disappearance of a stimulus (this stimulus being positive or pleasant).

Both procedures have the same function: to reduce the future probability of response., that is, reducing or eliminating a certain behavior, usually inappropriate. They are used to reduce children’s tantrums, screaming, bad behavior, swearing, not doing homework, disobedience, etc.

positive punishment

Positive punishment, as we have said, involves the appearance of an aversive or unwanted stimulus for the child. In this case, positive indicates “the appearance of.” Positive punishment can be used with multiple types of stimuli, actions or objects.

For example, in a child who bites his nails, a positive punishment would be to put an unpleasant substance on his nails, favoring the extinction of the behavior. Other examples are:

Yelling at a child for bad behavior.Forcing a teenager to do an unpleasant task when they misbehave.Adding tasks and responsibilities when a person doesn’t follow the rules.Assign extra work to students who forget to turn in their assignment.Implement more rules and restrictions when a teen breaks a ban.

It should be said that although it is a widely used technique, many education experts do not recommend it because it does not offer any learning for the child about alternative behaviors or appropriate behaviors, as other behavior modification techniques do (for example, overcorrection).

This type of punishment should only be chosen in exceptional cases, in which it has become clear that other methods are not going to have the expected result and if, in addition, there is a clear risk for the person, so an intervention with immediate effects is required. .

How to apply it?

Through punishment, a person can learn not to emit behaviors, but to do so some rules must be strictly followed. These rules, according to Barraca (2014) are:

The appearance of the aversive stimulation must be as immediate as possible to the emission of the response. There must be a contingency between the emission of the response and the unpleasant stimulus. That is, each and every time the undesirable response is emitted, aversive stimulation must appear. Aversive stimulation must be intense so that behavior can change. Positive punishment must be administered without influencing the mood. It is not a consequence of being angry. Positive punishment cannot be linked to a reinforcer. For example, if a teenager gets his friends to admire him because of his teacher’s reprimands, these will be ineffective. As in all behavior elimination procedures, while applied, any minimal approach to the desired alternative behavior should be reinforced. The subject must have the opportunity to receive reinforcement for alternative behaviors. The positive punishment technique must be used for the benefit of the punished, not the punisher. Positive punishment must be replaced, little by little, by less aversive procedures such as, for example, the reinforcements.

Positive punishment should be used on rare occasions as a control method. It is very common for punished people to develop feelings of frustration, discomfort and anger. Also that they imitate punishment behaviors and practice them with other people, that they deceive, hide or lie to avoid punishment.

negative punishment

In this case, negative indicates “the withdrawal” or “the disappearance of.” As in the previous case, the stimuli that we can use are very diverse: activities, objects, food, actions, food… Everything will depend on the value attributed by the person to whom we want to apply the negative punishment.

So, An example of negative punishment would be removing the privilege of watching TV for X days from a child who has not done his or her homework. In this case, the stimulus (tele) must be pleasant or desired for the child for the punishment to be truly effective. Other examples are:

After two children fight over control of the television, the mother simply takes the control away from both children.A teenager who misses an academic exam for playing with his cell phone is punished by his parents for a week without using the phone. A boy physically attacks a classmate, so his teacher takes away his “good behavior” tokens that can be exchanged for prizes.

Negative punishment is the same as response cost (for example, removing points from someone’s license for driving while drunk).

Who is it usually used with?

Positive punishment and negative punishment are two processes that are often used especially in the field of education and, more specifically, special education. So, They are used especially with children, with children and adults with intellectual disabilities, with people with autism with some neurodevelopmental disorder, etc. However, they can also be applied to anyone and at any age.

Logically, depending on the age and characteristics of the person, we must adapt each of these procedures so as not to lose their effectiveness. In addition, these procedures can also be used in adults in some cases.

Curiosities of punishment

An investigation, carried out by scientists from Harvard University (USA) and published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, focused on the study of the brain mechanisms that influenced when choosing the severity of a punishment.

Among its conclusions the following stands out: “the intentional manipulation of language to present an event in a more gruesome way or to present clear images of an event led to more severe punishment if the participant in question thought or believed that the incident had been intentional“.

In addition, the researchers found that the amygdala, a structure involved in the processing of fear, anger and emotions, was activated when the participants looked at images with great cruelty. Interestingly, this effect was only seen in the brain scans of participants who knew that there was intention behind the act.

Beyond positive and negative punishment

As we see, positive punishment and negative punishment are procedures that have the same function, but that They differ in that each involves either the presentation of an aversive stimulus or the withdrawal of an appetitive stimulus. respectively.

Beyond these techniques, there are others that are considered more useful and beneficial for the child’s learning and development; in fact, punishment is increasingly out of use by the growing advocacy for more respectful and flexible parenting.

Besides, It is not only important to teach the child what is wrong to do, but what he should do instead! (alternative behaviors). These techniques we talk about include: positive reinforcement, overcorrection, differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors, etc.

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