OUCH! That Hurts
The Complex Dynamics of Punishment and Reinforcement
Introduction
In our previous postings, we have emphasized the role of positive reinforcement in developing and maintaining behavior. We often think of a positive reinforcer as a stimulus or event which is pleasurable, like food to a hungry creature, or as a conditioned reinforcer like praise or money. (It’s important to note a positive reinforcer does not need to be pleasurable…it could even be painful! But if it increases the frequency of the behavior it follows, it is a positive reinforcer.)
There is another class of reinforcer, called a negative reinforcer, which also strengthens a behavior by its cessation, removal, or omission. Such stimuli are usually painful or at least unpleasant.
Punishment
What happens if such a stimulus occurs as a result or consequence of a particular response? The subsequent frequency of that response is likely to decrease and we say that the response has been punished. Stimuli or events which have this effect are called punishers. Punishment, delivering an aversive consequence for a particular response, is a very common practice throughout our culture, particularly in the management of young children. Painful stimuli such as slaps are frequently preceded by spoken words or gestures which can become conditioned punishers. A parent can cause a child to cease a particular activity simply by looking at the child in a certain way (e.g., “Mom has her mad face on”).
Punishers often elicit intense emotional responses which can become conditioned to the stimuli associated with the punisher. The dog who whimpers and cowers at the sight of an owner who beats it is exhibiting this phenomenon. Punishing stimuli may also elicit aggressive behavior such as biting, kicking, screaming, and destroying objects. These responses are often negatively reinforced by the removal of the punishing stimulus or the removal of the individual from the immediate environment. Tantrums sometimes serve this function.
Stimuli or events that signal the absence of reinforcer availability can also function like conditioned punishers. Payday in industries that occurs on a regular interval like weekly or bi-weekly is often an occasion for excessive partying, alcohol consumption, and brawling. Animal models of this phenomenon are interesting - a pigeon who completes a long fixed ratio of key pecs will consume his grain and thus maim or even kill another pigeon standing idly by in the same experimental chamber.
Escape and Avoidance
Aversive events occur all the time and we learn to escape or perhaps avoid them. If we are caught in a downpour, we can escape the cold soaking by rushing indoors. We might avoid it altogether by glancing at the sky and using the darkening clouds as a signal that rain is imminent. In both cases, our behavior has been negatively reinforced. Sometimes, the reinforcing event takes the form of a reduction in frequency or density of the aversive stimulus as when we spray on insect repellent before walking where there are mosquitos.
Learned Helplessness
Suppose an intensely aversive stimulus regularly occurs from which no escape is possible. Given such a history, many individuals might be unable to benefit from a new situation in which escape and eventually avoidance are possible. This condition can be created in the laboratory and requires hours and hours of specialized treatment to overcome. In other words, prolonged exposure to inescapable aversive stimulation may preclude the development of adaptive behavior in a normal environment. Toxic parenting? Poverty?
Timeout from Positive Reinforcement
We mentioned above that any event that signals the unavailability of reinforcement may become an aversive stimulus and function as a punisher. Parents and teachers eagerly adopted this practice once its effectiveness was shown in the laboratory. Care must be exercised to ensure that the activity from which the child is being excluded really is reinforcing; otherwise, the delinquent act may be a form of escape from a boring or otherwise aversive situation. There is a case of a third grader who was being sent to time out earlier and earlier each morning. The time-out room was where the teachers hung their coats and the child was eating a teacher’s lunch! Similarly, some juvenile detention centers offer environments superior to the offender’s homes so they misbehave to be sent there.
Of course, the ultimate timeout is jail or prison. These institutions are a key component of the criminal justice system. Their use as punishers often fail to achieve the intended result: cessation of the specific behavior. To truly promote rehabilitation, we must seize the opportunity provided by timeouts or periods of separation from positive reinforcement. Instead of solely focusing on isolation and deprivation, we should employ these moments to educate and teach alternative skills. By addressing the underlying reasons for misconduct and providing individuals with tools to cope, we can enhance their chances of successful reintegration into society and reduce the likelihood of recidivism.
For punishment to be effective, certain principles must be observed. An effective punisher elicits an intense reaction usually incompatible with the behavior which produces it. If a child touches a hot stove, the immediate withdrawal of the burned hand conflicts with another reaching toward the stove. This example illustrates two of the critical principles.
First, the punisher must be immediate. Any delay between the occurrence of the undesirable behavior and the punisher allows other behavior to occur and get punished instead.
Second, the punisher should be as intense as possible. A loud “NO” is preferable to a softer “no.” The punisher should be of sufficient intensity to elicit a pronounced response.
Third, the schedule of punishment should be a fixed ratio (FR) 1. That is, every occurrence of the behavior should encounter the punisher. If the punisher only occurs occasionally, and other occurrences of the behavior encounter reinforcement, the punisher may be largely ineffective.
Fourth, an alternative response should have been available to produce the desired reinforcer. The individual could then be encouraged to try that response and be successful.
Conditioned punishers are stimuli or events present when the punisher occurs. These should be discriminable from similar stimuli or events that serve as conditioned reinforcers at other times. Think back to our“Mom has her mad face on!” example.
Rules and Laws
Elsewhere we have discussed rule-governed behavior. All social organizations, from the simplest to the most complex, function by a set of rules, sometimes called bylaws, which members must observe or risk being separated from the group. The benefits of membership in the group are presumed to be sufficient to maintain rule-compliant behavior. Civil entities such as cities, towns, counties, states, and nations also have laws, usually created by elected groups of individuals. Citizen members of these units usually obey these laws, partly because the consequences of failure to do so are well known. Administering such consequences requires the establishment of a separate subsection of government known as
The Criminal Justice System
Not surprisingly, a major component of this system is known as law enforcement whose job it is to detect and apprehend individuals who fail to obey the law. Frequently, individuals involved in law enforcement are known as police. They wear distinctive uniforms and drive cars that are (usually) easily identified by special colors and symbols. Because these symbols are often paired with aversive events like being arrested and removed from the scene, they become conditioned aversive stimuli. As such, they signal escape or avoidance.
If an individual has a poor relationship with the police in their community, and behavior they have in the presence of police will resemble a) avoidance which is overt operant behavior, and b) most likely fear and/or anxiety (e.g., increased heart rate, perspiration) which are respondent behavior (although these respondent behaviors are often paired with operant behavior that would reflect that). When a recipient of police intervention reacts in a way that is seen as non-compliant or challenging in the presence of an officer (the officer and their demands are a discriminative stimulus for the noncompliant behavior), the officer may use force as a negative reinforcer to stop the noncompliant behavior. This force can be physical, such as the use of a Taser or a chokehold, or psychological, such as verbal threats. By stopping the citizen’s behavior with force, the officer’s behavior is negatively reinforced by the citizen’s compliance, as the use of force successfully ended the behavior.
However, the citizen's behavior is being punished as the use of force is a punishing stimulus that stops the behavior. This can cause the citizen to feel helpless and unable to escape the aversive stimulus of police physicality, creating a learned helplessness that prevents them from behaving adaptively in future interactions with police. Additionally, the use of force as a negative reinforcer can lead to an escalation of violence, as the citizen may begin hitting and kicking in response to the punishing stimulus. This behavior then cues officers’ response and so the cycle continues.
This is similar to what happened to Jordan Neely. Struggling with the murder of his mother at a young age, he then grappled with homelessness and mental illness for years, so much so that he was on New York’s ‘Top 50’ list of at-risk homeless people. Jordan Neely’s behavior is what we would call a combination of negatively and positively reinforced: He is in a rather grim situation and engaging in behaviors to essentially escape the aversive environment (i.e., hunger) to access positive reinforcement (e.g., food, shelter, comfort). Daniel Penny (and onlookers) found themselves in an aversive environment as well (i.e., Jordan Neely’s behavior) and were also seeking to avoid/escape. What happens next is the ‘perfect’ storm of establishing operations, discriminative stimuli, and reinforcement histories; the behaviors and consequences that occurred were the result.
Creating an ideal environment where coercion takes a backseat to positive reinforcement is essential. When the culture fails to foster a positive atmosphere, where feeling good is associated with doing good, offending behaviors tend to escalate, necessitating increased coercion. To reduce the need for police intervention, we must strive to change the behavior of our culture, focusing on promoting large amounts of behavior that benefit individuals and the surrounding community. By recognizing that the foundations of parenting, education, and service play crucial roles in shaping prosocial behavior, we can work towards a more harmonious and law-abiding society.
Pass it on and see you next week!
I think in your first paragraph you should emphasize that we only call something positive reinforcement, whether pleasurable or not, if it increases the frequency of the behavior it follows.