• Explain The Difference Between Positive And Negative Reinforcement

Learning is a process that produces change in an organism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning). This change usually is permanent although extinction can occur. Extinction is when the new behavior happens less frequently due to the reward being withdrawn. Learning through operational conditioning is through manipulating stimulus to increase or decrease responses or a certain behavior. This is seen in positive reinforcement/punishment and negative reinforcement/punishment methods. In the reinforcement aspect this increases a desired behavior and in the punishment aspect it lessens an undesirable behavior.

The two types of reinforcement are positive and negative. Positive reinforcement increases a behavior by making the consequence pleasurable. This can be seen when a parent gives candy or treats to a child when they clean their room or make good grades. The reward encourages the individual to repeat and increase the desired behavior. Negative reinforcement removes an unpleasurable consequence so the behavior increases. An example of this can be seen when a person takes pain medication. The removal of the pain increases the chances of the medicine being used to again. These two types of reinforcement reward positively or reward with removal
of negative stimuli to increase the desired behavior.

The two types of punishment are positive and negative.
Positive punishment is the application of an unpleasant consequence to decrease the behavior/event. An example is when a parent yells at a child when they misbehave. It is called 'positive' because of the applied stimulus of yelling and the punishment is due to the desire to decrease the behavior or response (misbehavior). Negative punishment is the removal of a stimulus to decrease a behavior. This can be seen when a parent takes away a teenager's car when they stay out past their curfew. The negative implies the removal of a stimulus (taking car away) due to the response of staying out past curfew. This removal of stimulus will decrease the undesirable
behavior.

There are four types of partial reinforcements that determine when a reward is given for a response. The first is fixed-ratio and delivers the reinforcement after a pre-determined number of responses has been completed. An example of this type is rewarding a child after he or she brings homes five tests with an A. The variable in this instance would be five; this number indicates the number of required responses before a reward is given. The next type of partial reinforcement is variable-ratio. This partial reinforcement has an unpredictable timeframe. There are no fixed response/reward schedules. An example of this is seen in gambling or playing the lottery. An individual can win playing the first time or after playing all day there is no pattern for giving out rewards. Another type of partial reinforcement is fixed-interval. This schedule has a set time for rewarding after a response has been made. An example of this is when the rat presses the bar and there is a time lapse of fifteen seconds until pellet is given. The fixed time of fifteen seconds can be any amount of time but is not changed afterwards. The last type of partial reinforcement is variable-interval. In this type there is no pre-determined time lapse it is sporadic. This variable schedule is slow to produce responses due to the sporadic time lapses between response and reward given. An example of this is when the rat presses the bar and the pellet is given one minute afterwards, the next time it could be a fifteen second lapse, and again the next time could be a thirty second lapse until pellet is released.

These different methods of learning all have their benefits. Each human and animal learns in his or her own way. Finding the ideal method of how a particular species learns increases survival and success. Operational conditioning uses positive and negative reinforcements and punishments to teach better behavior. These rewards are given on a different schedule of either fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval or variable-interval to achieve ideal learning environments.