Punished Again

Punishment Outside the Laboratory Common examples of punishment used with children Punishment – extra chores – writing an essay (often on a 'fitting' subject) – corporal punishment usually as spanking “omission training” All of these are negative punishment – time-outs How to Use Time Out Effectively – Use a specific time out area – Set amount of time spent in time out, age related – Specifying target behaviors – grounding – temporary removal of privileges – denial of treats – fining usually by deduction from the allowance

Punishment Outside the Laboratory Use of positive punishment in clinical settings restricted to extreme circumstances when all other forms of treatment have failed and when the behavior to be modified is a danger to the person or to others To stop self injurious behavior – example of recurrent vomiting in nine month old infant – Example of self-injurious behavior “head banging” May be only recourse for infants or developmentally disabled adults

Punishment Outside the Laboratory Punishment in Criminal Justice System How effective is use of punishment in the criminal justice system? Socio-economical punishments fines or loss of income demotion suspension or expulsion – Physical Punishments imprisonment and other forms of forced detention corporal punishment: the deliberate infliction of pain intended as correction or punishment capital punishment i.e. death penalty, killing of a person as punishment

The Effect of Praise, Positive Nonverbal Response, Reprimand, and Negative Nonverbal Response on Child Compliance Relationship between child compliance and parenting discipline – Praise socially rewarding comments “good job” – positive nonverbal responses cues of warmth or approval such as hugs, authentic smiles may include tangible reinforcers “candy” – Reprimand brief, immediate, firm verbalizations meant to punish the recipient Harsh and critical utterances (e.g., yelling at child, insulting child) are not reprimand – negative nonverbal responses cues of threat or disapproval such as stern looks, crossed arms, and shaking head signals of negative emotion may loss of privileges

The Effect of Praise, Positive Nonverbal Response, Reprimand, and Negative Nonverbal Response on Child Compliance Noncompliance – failing to follow or doing the opposite of an instruction, – Common in early childhood – high rates of noncompliance – developmental precursor to conduct problems Most parents often use praise to reward and reprimand to punish – praise and reprimand obtain social meaning Which behaviors are acceptable and which are not Paired with naturally reinforcing or punishing consequences – parent–child relationship quality can increase or decrease the value of praise and reprimands for the child – Parent training programs include instruction in the use of praise and reprimand

Reprimand and negative nonverbal responses consistently resulted in greater compliance Time-out is consistently found to be an effective nonverbal means of reducing problem behavior Praise and positive nonverbal responses do not consistently produce compliance – Using only praise may not be enough to reinforce compliance. – for some children identified as noncompliant praise may function differently as compared with children not identified as noncompliant The Effect of Praise, Positive Nonverbal Response, Reprimand, and Negative Nonverbal Response on Child Compliance

Theories of Punishment Conditioned Emotional Response: – Recall from chapter three CS+(tone) paired with US(shock) trials to produce fear conditioning In an operant chamber suppression of lever pressing when the tone comes on. – Suppression of on going behavior because of emotional response to the aversive stimulus – Activates defensive behavior of freezing from fear stimulus Which interrupts other behaviors – When an ‘explicit’ CS is not used “context” cues can predict the aversive event Place where the aversive is encountered forms strong emotional memories CER can explain why response-contingent aversive stimuli produce more suppression than non-contingent

Theories of Punishment The Avoidance Theory – Based on Two-Process theory Avoidance behavior related to fear established during Punishment Not freezing which is suppression of behavior Produces escape responses which replace the punished behavior Punished response is not weakened – Instead, strengthening of avoidance responses that ‘compete’ with punished response – These eventually ‘outweigh’ punished responses and therefore control behavior Limitations of theory – What are the avoidance responses that are acquired? – Difficult to test empirically – Escape from the aversive stimulus produces avoidance behavior. – Learn an alternative “replacement” behavior to avoid the aversive stimulus.

Theories of Punishment Negative Law of Effect – Originated by Thorndike Positive reinforcement and punishment are symmetrically opposite effects Reinforcement strengthens and punishment weakens behavior – Tested with concurrent schedules where one schedule is reinforced and the other is punished – Rasmussen (2008) reinforcer was getting 4 cents and punisher was loosing 4 cents – Punishment produced a large bias in responding – Three times as much effect from punishment as reinforcement