Of the four simple consequences for behavior, none is more misunderstood than negative reinforcement. A Negative Reinforcement Quiz administered to 233 student teachers from two universities revealed that the vast majority of respondents mistakenly viewed negative reinforcement as a synonym for punishment, and believe that negative reinforcement…

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of positive and negative reinforcements upon black college students. In the first experiment subjects received either positive or negative reinforcement from a black or a white evaluator. Results indicated that behavioral change (compliance) was greater in response to negative reinforcement…

Describes a study based on the hypothesis that there were consistencies in child-rearing practices such that a regular progression would exist in children's performance of coercive responses. Results suggest that schedules of parental punishment covary with performance rates for children's coercive behaviors. (Author/EJT)

Results indicate that reward and ignore conditions were not different but both yielded higher imitative scores than the punishment condition; same-sex models yielded higher imitation scores than opposite-sex models; lowest imitation scores were obtained by children exposed to a male experimenter and a female model. (Author/BJG)

Research supported in part by U.S. Office of Education, OEC-4-6-061646-1909.

Described is a multi-faceted money system which utilizes positive and negative reinforcement while at the same time incorporating peer pressure and reinforcement for behavior modification. The system uses such items as money, checks, deposit slips, and bank books. Children have jobs such as pencil sellers, banker, or door monitor, and receive pay…

The purpose of the present investigation is to assess social class and race differences in the use of reinforcement by mothers and children. The general hypotheses underlying this approach is the expectation of a functional similarity between social class and race effects on the use of reinforcements by mothers and children. The subjects were 109…

The New Orleans model for parent-infant education involves the use of non-professional workers, trained by professional staff, who teach general concepts of child development and child management to groups of disadvantaged mothers. Two themes are stressed: the parent is now and will be the child's most important teacher, and all the baby's time is…

The comparative effectiveness of an aversive stimulus, withholding of resources, withdrawal of love and reasoning, when used alone and combined with praise, was assessed in the standard laboratory punishment paradigm using 120 first and second graders as subjects. Resistance to deviation was used as the measure of punishment effectiveness. Sex of…

Overcorrection is a mild punishment technique that provides for logical consequences of inappropriate behaviors. The method has two components--restitution, during which a disruptive environment is reinstated to a state vastly superior to the original one, and positive practice, during which more appropriate responses are taught to replace the…

In the best of conceivable worlds, the use of punishment would not be necessary. In the real world of school, however, punishment is sometimes needed. The author provides guidelines for maximizing the positive effects of punishment. (Author/RK)

Two severely retarded institutionalized children (4 and 7 years old) who exhibited high rates of severely self-injurious behaviors were punished with aromatic ammonia inhalation on a response-contingent basis. (Author/SBH)

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of positive and negative reinforcements upon black college students. The perceived objectivity of white evaluators was compared to that of black evaluators. Perceived objectivity being the social reinforcement likely to be accepted, internalized, and complied with in proportion to the…

Paradoxical strategies appear to provide a change in the dynamics of the teacher-child relationship and are thus a more systemic way of viewing problem behavior than time-out procedures. Three case studies are presented in which the paradoxical strategies have varying degrees of success. (Author/ABB)