What Is Punishment In Psychology And How Is It Used?
Punishment is one of the central concepts for behavioral psychology It is a behavior modification technique whose purpose is to reduce or extinguish the repetition of a behavior.
It is, likewise, a concept that has been constantly taken up and even criticized by some disciplines outside of psychology, as well as by subdisciplines within it; especially for pedagogy, educational psychology, clinical psychology and also organizational psychology, among others.
In colloquial language, the term “punishment” has also spread and has been loaded with different meanings, which often They use it as a synonym for emotional or physical damage
This is why talking about “punishment” can have some variations depending on who uses the concept, and can also give rise to different confusions. In this article we will see specifically what punishment is in behaviorist tradition psychology (especially in operant conditioning), and how it is used.
What is punishment? Its use in operant conditioning
The concept of punishment applied in psychology arises from the current of operant conditioning The latter was systematized by the American psychologist Frederic Skinner, who took up the most classic theories of conditioning developed by John Watson and Iván Pávlov; and later worked on by another American psychologist: Edward Thorndike.
Classical conditioning refers to how we learn a behavior by presenting a stimulus. Broadly speaking, classical conditioning tells us that when a stimulus is presented, a response (an action or behavior) appears. Thus, it is possible to develop a behavioral technology capable of creating situations and contexts that increase the probability that certain actions will be carried out, and reduce the probability that others will be carried out.
Operant conditioning, for its part, also assumes the technical implications of classical conditioning, although it proposes other means to achieve it. It proposes that this response is followed by a specific consequence. And this last one, the consequence, is the element that defines whether the behavior is repeated or decreases
Thus, operant conditioning analyzes how and what are the consequences that can produce or eliminate certain behavior or action For this it has been necessary to use different concepts that have significantly impacted both theories and behavioral modification interventions. Among these concepts are “consequence” and “punishment”, which we will see developed below.
The consequence and punishment according to behavioral psychology
In short, the consequence is the effect of the behavior. In other words, it is what occurs after a certain action occurs. The consequence can have two possible results: it can either cause the action to be repeated, or it can cause the action to decrease.
The first case is a “positive consequence”, since it reinforces the behavior and favors its reiteration In the second case, we speak of a “negative consequence”, because its main effect is the suppression of behavior. We see then that, despite frequently using concepts such as “positive” or “negative”, in the context of operant conditioning these are not terms that indicate morality, that is, they should not be understood as “good” or “bad”, but in terms of its effects and according to the way in which a stimulus is presented.
So, the consequence can both strengthen a behavior and suppress it And the latter depends on how it is applied and what its purpose is, which lends itself to implementing desirable behavioral models from the point of view of the family, society, etc. We can then distinguish two types of consequence:
Operant conditioning tells us that to strengthen a behavior, it is necessary to present or withdraw a stimulus The objective of both presenting and removing it is always to reinforce the behavior. The latter can occur through two different actions and elements:
1.1. positive reinforcer
Positive reinforcement is what occurs through the presentation of a pleasant stimulus. For example, when a person is given an incentive (material or immaterial) that he likes, after having had the expected behavior. A classic can be giving a sweet to a small child when he has done something that we want to repeat. In the more traditional context of animal experimentation an example of positive reinforcement is when a rat is given a food pellet after pressing a lever.
1.2. negative reinforcer
Negative reinforcement consists of removing an unpleasant stimulus For example, removing something the person doesn’t like: If a child dislikes doing homework, negative reinforcement is to reduce the number of homework after he or she has engaged in a desired behavior (as this will make the behavior worse). repeat).
Another example is when alarms begin to sound inside a car telling us that we are not wearing a seat belt. These alarms are only removed once we have put on the seat belt. That is to say, its withdrawal reinforces our behavior.
2. Negative consequence (punishment)
On the other hand, the negative consequence, also called “punishment”, has the objective of suppressing a behavior. As in the previous cases, it is necessary to present or withdraw a stimulus; only in this case, The goal is always to extinguish, or at least reduce, the appearance of a behavior The above follows a more complex learning mechanism than that of the positive consequence, and can occur in two possible ways:
2.1. positive punishment
In this case, a stimulus is presented that causes disgust or rejection, so that the person or organism associates a behavior with said unpleasant sensation and then avoids its repetition. For example, electrical shocks have been used in animal experiments. when they perform unwanted behaviors An example among people may be punishments based on unpleasant words or physical approaches.
Often, punishments extinguish or diminish a behavior only temporarily. In addition, they can reinforce the negative emotional association with the behavior or with the conditioned stimulus, which is the situation (it can be the simple presence of a person) that alerts about the approaching aversive stimulus.
2.2. negative punishment
The negative punishment consists of the withdrawal of a pleasant stimulus For example, when something they like is taken away from a person. A typical case could be taking away a child’s favorite toy after he has engaged in a behavior that we do not want him to repeat.
Depending on how much coherence and relationship there is between the unwanted behavior and the stimulus, said behavior can be extinguished in the short or long term; and may, or may not, be generalized to other contexts or people.
In other words, it may happen that the child only suppresses the behavior when he is in front of a specific person (the one who always takes the toy away), but does not suppress it in front of other people or in other circumstances. In this case, it is important that there is a logical and immediate relationship between the negative consequence and the behavior that we want to extinguish. Finally, even if a behavior manages to become extinct, this does not necessarily imply that it has been replaced by reference models that result in alternative and more desirable learning.
