Types of Reinforcement and Punishment
Positive
Reinforcement
(strengthens a
response)
Punishment
(weakens a
response
Negative
+ + -
Using the Chart above as a guide, choose if each of the following examples is an example
positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment or negative
punishment, or if it is none of the above. Use the following abbreviations:
PR: Positive Reinforcement
NR: Negative Reinforcement
PP: Positive Punishment
NP: Negative Punishment
NA: Not Applicable
1._____negative reinforcement___ A mother keeps nagging her son to take out the garbage, to
stop the nagging, he finally completes the task.
2.____positive reinforcement____ A child behaves himself when he goes to the grocery store
and gets to choose a treat when they check out. There is no change in the child’s behavior as a
result.
3.___Positive Reinforcement_____ In Ms. Smith’s third grade class, the student’s receive a gold
star after every book they finish reading. As such, her class has read more books than any of the
other third grade classes.
4.___Negative Reinforcement_____ Harold loves teasing his younger sister Melissa just to make
her angry. She hits him every time he teases her, he thinks it is funny and teases her even more
frequently.
5.___negative reinforcement_____ Greta misses her curfew and comes home over 2 hours late.
She is grounded from using the car for two weeks but continues to come home late.
6.___Positive punishment_____ Eddie likes to drive fast, really fast. In the last week he has
received two speeding tickets, Eddie now obeys all traffic laws for fear of losing his license.
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7.________ Caroline forgot to turn off her lights before getting out of her car, a bell keeps
ringing in her car until she finally turns off the lights.
8._________ Robert sees the icon for his e-mail flashing at the bottom of his screen, it is so
annoying that in order to make it stops he opens his e-mail to read the new message.
9.________ Sarah got her haircut is a new style and was unsure if she was happy with the cut.
A number of her friends complimented her on the new look.
10.________ Shirley’s boss praises her recent work in the advertising agency, she feels great
about the compliment and works even harder.
11.________ If every member of a high school psychology class does not complete their
assigned reading, they will be given twice as much. After this happens on a few occasions, not a
single member of the class fails to do the reading.
12.________ A teakettle whistles to indicate the tea is ready, because of this Marie takes the
kettle off of the heat to have her morning cup.
13.________ If Karen is nice to her boyfriend all week he brings her flowers, she loves flowers
(and her boyfriend) and is always nice to him now.
14.________ Tayla’s mother plays Barry Manilow music very loud (Tayla hates Barry
Manilow) if Tayla is late coming downstairs for dinner.
15.________ Frank likes Nicki and he often makes fun of her and pulls on her ponytail. She is
irritated and calls him names but he loves the attention and does it more often.
16.________ Linda has found that practicing Yoga relieves a great deal of stress. After this
realization Linda has tried to fit some Yoga in every day.
17.________ John’s alarm clock has an irritating pitch but because it is all the way across the
room he gets up immediately each day as soon as it goes off.
18.________ If George brings home bad grades at the end of a grading period, his parents take
away his cell phone for a week. This happened once, and since then George has not had any bad
grades.
19.________ The theme song for the ride “It’s a small world after all” would not stop playing
the entire time that Martha was on the ride, which seems to last forever.
20._______ Peter keeps swearing in class, each time he does his teacher asks him to put a dime
in a jar, since this policy has been implemented Peter’s swearing has slowed considerably.
21.________ Each time that students in a high school psychology class complete a worksheet
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correctly they are given a high fives from their teacher. Because of this they try as hard as they
can to do well on their worksheets.
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