When I was first tasked with the idea of positive and negative reinforcement, I struggled with the concept that it was not good and bad. To help me understand the concept I turned to real-life examples to help me fully understand. The example that I found to be most helpful was the idea of studying. I wanted to increase productivity while decreasing distractions. In order to increase behaviour, I decided to use positive reinforcement. I would set a goal of what I wanted to get done before I was allowed to do anything else. If I achieved that goal, I would add a positive stimulus by treating myself with a piece of candy. In order to decrease distractions while doing the work, I used negative punishment. If I checked my phone, talked to a friend or changed topics in any way I would withdraw the describable stimulus of listening to music. Since I was trying to decrease the behaviour of getting off-topic and I was taking away desired stimulus I was using negative punishment. I am now able to understand reinforcement and punishment much better because I have a real-life example to connect to and have practiced using it in my daily life.
Along with using reinforcement and punishment in my life, I made a flow chart to help me decide which type of punishment or reinforcement is being used in other examples. My study habits helped me to learn the basic idea of punishment and reinforcement but I was still having trouble deciding in other examples. This flowchart allows me to establish if the behaviour is increasing or decreasing, from there I can what type of stimulus is being added or removed, leading me to the type of reinforcement or punishment. This chart helped me to break down what was originally a very daunting topic into 3 easy steps.
