Examples Of Negative Reinforcement

The quote, "Beat a dog once and you only have to show him the whip," from One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich shows an example of negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is a term used when someone makes a decision based on a current situation, where the outcome is favorable, so it provides the person with a decision for the future. A simple example of negative reinforcement could be if someone is waiting at a stop light and when it turns green, the person car in front of them doesn’t go, they would honk the horn to grab their attention and they start moving. The negative reinforcement in this situation is as follows: before the car was not moving, the action taken is the honk of the horn, afterward the car moves, so the future decision is to honk the horn if a car does not move at a green light.
The situation is presumably is that the dog has done something bad or against the authoritative being’s rules and in response, that being, in this case a man or woman, retaliates by beating the dog with a whip. The dog realizes he has done something wrong and that his punishment is a horrific beating. In the future when he does something wrong, he simply must see the whip to stop and cower in fear, to avoid punishment. The man in this situation holds authority and declares he has done wrong, decides the punishment and delivers it. The man is what most people compare to: the judge, jury, and executioner. In the 2000 movie, “Remember the Titans,” Denzel Washington said, “This is no democracy. It is a dictatorship. I am the law.” That is a perfect description of the authority the man holds over his