Negative reinforcement is when a response or a behavior gets strengthened by removing, stopping or avoiding an outcome that is negative. This term negative reinforcement is mentioned by B. F Skinner in his operant conditioning theory. Aversive stimuli always tend to involve some discomfort that is either psychological or physical in nature. Negative reinforcement is one of the most principles of behavior that is misunderstood. The term stimulus can be used within any applied behavior analysis to be able to describe when something is taken away. The stimulus can be an object, noise or even emotion. Negative reinforcement is said to have taken place only when a person engages in a behavior that creates favorable outcome more frequently in future (Domjan et al, 2010). This paper aims at explaining how negative reinforcement can be used to change real life human behavior and explain the details of the behavior.
The behavior that is negatively reinforced in this case is working hard to pass exams. A person who works less hard or does not work hard normally does not pass exams well unless otherwise but when a person works hard the person passes exams. By working hard, there are probable cases of rewarding that is passing exams and in other words performing well in academics. The taking away of an unpleasant stimulus in order to increase a certain behavior or response will apply in this case. For hard work behavior, the stimulus of not passing exams as required is taken away in order to make working hard increase. When a person does not apply the behavior of working hard, she or he will perform poorly and the poor performance in this case is the stimulus. When the person works hard on the other side, the stimulus of poor performance is taken away thus promoting the person’s behavior of working hard. The encouraged behavior here is thus to work hard which comes up with good results.
In every learning institution, each student is required to perform well and every parent would love their children to excel in academics. Before any exam, most students will engage in reading their books so as to pass the awaited exams. The students read other materials like articles and journals provided the required information is available too. Reading and working hard could be two different things and many individuals tend to confuse the two. A person who may be reading his or her books for the sake of examination and just during examination times may never be considered as hard working. On the other hand, a person who keeps on referring to books and several ones for that matter, consulting the educators and involving in practical skills often could be seen as a hard working one as compared to the examination reader. Working hard to pass exams encourages a student to sit the exam and have confidence that she or he will pass (Coon et al, 2010). Further research showed that test-takers who involved themselves in studying and later took a test were more likely to pass the entire test than others who do not partake that. Researchers give information that in order to pass a test; a good student should take a class, possess study materials and often have the learning materials in their appropriate use. Working hard too involves studying early rather than just getting to read books when examinations are about to begin. Studying in advance gives a student time to focus, understand, master and get to know what is achievable and that which is not achievable.
My procedure of negative reinforcement took a whole semester of study. Unlike the other semesters that I could not work hard, I had bad results that in other words people referred to as poor performance. By experimenting negative reinforcement, I wanted a positive response and so engaged fully in the behavior change. I attended almost all my lectures as attending all was almost impossible considering some uncertainties like sicknesses. I ensured that my concentration in class improved day by day and later it became good. I would always refer to my lecture notes and textbooks during study and successfully, I was able to study almost four times a week. Having a series of examinations in a semester, I had changes in the performances with a graph that was always increasing. The first assessment test marked an improvement in my scores. With identification that failing in exams was fading away, I increased my interest of hard work as it would have examination fails fade away. The second assessment test had better results and I later improved my skills of learning. The final exams had more improvement and that is how my hard work came to exist as a behavior to encourage good performance in academics.
In concluding, the aversive stimulus of performing poorly was eliminated and a new behavior that is positive encouraged. The new behavior of working hard is encouraged and becomes a habit especially when an individual finds out its importance. Negative reinforcement is thus experienced when the rate of a behavior increases because of the removal of an aversive stimulus. Just as explained in the procedure of changing from laziness to hard working, poor performance was eliminated and good performance came in making hard work gain importance and was put to practice.
References
Coon, D., Mitterer, J. O., Talbot, S., & Vanchella, C. M. (2010). Introduction to psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Domjan, M., Grau, J. W., & Krause, M. A. (2010). The principles of learning and behavior. Australia: Wadsworth Cenage Learning.
