Foundations of Behavior

Foundations of Behavior

Foundations of Behavior

Kim Smith

Aspects of Psychology

Unit 1 Discussion Board

Professor Alfred Kent Van Cleave

Foundations of Behavior

Motivation can be the driving force behind the actions in behavior.  There are many different types of motivation, as parents, educators, or adults, we exhibit different types of behaviors in children, our goal is to find out what stimulates them to accomplish the behavior we desire, as they mature and grow throughout the different stages of their life.

        The use of positive and negative reinforcement is a balance that is never quite perfect.  We use reinforcement to help increase desired behavior and in hopes of continuing the behavior in the future.  When we present a motivation stimulus to a person after exhibiting good behavior, this is positive reinforcement.  In other words, if I give my child praise for completing all their homework, this is an example of positive reinforcement.  An adverse stimulus is removed for a behavior; this is referred to negative reinforcement. This is done by avoiding a negative consequence. If your teenage child does the dishes to keep the mother from nagging them, this is negative reinforcement.  Reinforcement is confused typically with punishment. The outcomes are different, with reinforcement the end results is to increase behavior, with punishment, it is to decrease behavior.  

        Punishment has positive and negative also, the difference can be confusing. Punishment should immediately follow an undesired behavior, to decrease it happening in the future.  If your child takes away a toy from another child, you set the child that took away the toy in timeout. This is positive punishment. With negative punishment, if your children fight over who gets to play a toy first, the parent should take the toy away.  

        Research has shown positive consequences result in improving behavior, over negative consequences. Discipline is a process for both children and parents, when done correctly; it doesn’t take long for your children to behave in the desired outcome you always dreamed.  

A fairly simple action is operant conditioning, referred also as “Skinnerian”. Behaviorist, B. F. Skinner proclaimed not to look at internal thoughts, to explain behavior.  Skinner, thought only our external should be observed to find out the reasons for human behavior. If someone tells a funny story in class and everyone laughs, more than likely you tell the story again in the future (Skinner, 1935).  Operant conditioning are actions that you followed by reinforcement to achieve the outcome in the future. (Cherry and Cherry, 2015)