Punishment refers to any negative change that occurs immediately after a behavior and is likely to reduce the probability of that same behavior reoccurring in future. Punishment can be positive or negative.
An Incident that May Call for Punishment
Mark, a six year old boy, is undergoing therapy and is being taught to follow instructions given by his mother. During the therapy sessions, he is given access to his favorite toys. Whenever he is given instructions by his mother and he fails to follow them, one of his toys is taken away from him. Mark does not like it when the toys are taken. From this he learns to follow his mother’s instructions so as to avoid losing toys.
Limitations
One of the main challenges to the use of punishment is balancing beneficence and non-maleficence. A psychologist is supposed to act with the client’s best interests at heart. He is also expected to do no harm to the client in the course of delivering his services. In the case of punishment, the client must be aware of how far he can go without destabilizing this balance. While it is necessary for the client to get better, the psychologist must not allow harm to come to the client as a result of his conduct. The benefits of the program should outweigh any potential risks for it to be considered ethical.
The client may also not have given his informed consent for the punishment procedures used in the session. This could be a breach of ethics. They may not have fully understood the implications of the therapy and this means that although they may have consented to the therapy, it did not include the punishment as far as they were concerned.
References
American Psycholgical Association. (2013). Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Retrieved January 31st, 2013, from American Psycholgical Association: http://www.apa.org/ethics/code2002.html#principle
Mazur, J. (2002). Learning and behaviour. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Spradlin, J. (2002). Punishment: a primary process. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 475-77.
