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Consequence affecting an organism's future behavior

In behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular antecedent stimulus. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever to receive food whenever a light is turned on. In this example, the light is the antecedent stimulus, the lever pushing is the operant behavior, and the food is the reinforcer. Likewise, a student that receives attention and praise when answering a teacher's question will be more likely to answer future questions in class. The teacher's question is the antecedent, the student's response is the behavior, and the praise and attention are the reinforcements. Consequences that lead to appetitive behavior such as subjective "wanting" and "liking" (desire and pleasure) function as rewards or positive reinforcement. There is also negative reinforcement, which involves taking away an undesirable stimulus. An example of negative reinforcement would be taking an aspirin to relieve a headache. Reinforcement is an important component of operant conditioning and behavior modification. The concept has been applied in a variety of practical areas, including parenting, coaching, therapy, self help, education, and management.

In the behavioral sciences, the terms "positive" and "negative" refer when used in their strict technical sense to the nature of the action performed by the conditioner rather than to the responding operant's evaluation of that action and its consequence(s). "Positive" actions are those that add a factor, be it pleasant or unpleasant, to the environment, whereas "negative" actions are those that remove or withhold from the environment a factor of either type. In turn, the strict sense of "reinforcement" refers only to reward based conditioning; the introduction of unpleasant factors and the removal or withholding of pleasant factors are instead referred to as "punishment", which when used in its strict sense thus stands in contradistinction to "reinforcement". Thus, "positive reinforcement" refers to the addition of a pleasant factor, "positive punishment" refers to the addition of an unpleasant factor, "negative reinforcement" refers to the removal or withholding of an unpleasant factor, and "negative punishment" refers to the removal or withholding of a pleasant factor. This usage is at odds with some non technical usages of the four term combinations, especially in the case of the term "negative reinforcement", which is often used to denote what technical parlance would describe as "positive punishment" in that the non technical usage interprets "reinforcement" as subsuming both reward and punishment and "negative" as referring to the responding operant's evaluation of the factor being introduced. By contrast, technical parlance would use the term "negative reinforcement" to describe encouragement of a given behavior by creating a scenario in which an unpleasant factor is or will be present but engaging in the behavior results in either escaping from that factor or preventing its occurrence, as in Martin Seligman’s experimente involving dogs learning to avoid electric shocks.

B. F. Skinner was a well known and influential researcher who articulated many of the theoretical constructs of reinforcement and behaviorism. Skinner defined reinforcers according to the change in response strength (response rate) rather than to more subjective criteria, such as what is pleasurable or valuable to someone. Accordingly, activities, foods or items considered pleasant or enjoyable may not necessarily be reinforcing (because they produce no increase in the response preceding them). Stimuli, settings, and activities only fit the definition of reinforcers if the behavior that immediately precedes the potential reinforcer increases in similar situations in the future; for example, a child who receives a cookie when he or she asks for one. If the frequency of "cookie requesting behavior" increases, the cookie can be seen as reinforcing "cookie requesting behavior". If however, "cookie requesting behavior" does not increase the cookie cannot be considered reinforcing. The sole criterion that determines if a stimulus is reinforcing is the change in probability of a behavior after administration of that potential reinforcer. Other theories may focus on additional factors such as whether the person expected a behavior to produce a given outcome, but in the behavioral theory, reinforcement is defined by an increased probability of a response. The study of reinforcement has produced an enormous body of reproducible experimental results. Reinforcement is the central concept and procedure in special education, applied behavior analysis, and the experimental analysis of behavior and is a core concept in some medical and psychopharmacology models, particularly addiction, dependence, and compulsion.

Laboratory research on reinforcement is usually dated from the work of Edward Thorndike, known for his experiments with cats escaping from puzzle boxes. A number of others continued this research, notably B. F. Skinner, who published his seminal work on the topic in The Behavior of Organisms, in 1938, and elaborated this research in many subsequent publications. Notably Skinner argued that positive reinforcement is superior to punishment in shaping behavior. Though punishment may seem just the opposite of reinforcement, Skinner claimed that they differ immensely, saying that positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral modification (long term) whereas punishment changes behavior only temporarily (short term) and has many detrimental side effects. A great many researchers subsequently expanded our understanding of reinforcement and challenged some of Skinner's conclusions. For example, Azrin and Holz defined punishment as a “consequence of behavior that reduces the future probability of that behavior,” and some studies have shown that positive reinforcement and punishment are equally effective in modifying behavior. Research on the effects of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment continue today as those concepts are fundamental to learning theory and apply to many practical applications of that theory.

The term operant conditioning was introduced by Skinner to indicate that in his experimental paradigm, the organism is free to operate on the environment. In this paradigm, the experimenter cannot trigger the desirable response; the experimenter waits for the response to occur (to be emitted by the organism) and then a potential reinforcer is delivered. In the classical conditioning paradigm, the experimenter triggers (elicits) the desirable response by presenting a reflex eliciting stimulus, the unconditional stimulus (UCS), which they pair (precede) with a neutral stimulus, the conditional stimulus (CS). Reinforcement is a basic term in operant conditioning. For the punishment aspect of operant conditioning, see punishment (psychology).

Positive reinforcement occurs when a desirable event or stimulus is presented as a consequence of a behavior and the chance that this behavior will manifest in similar environments increases. The high probability instruction (HPI) treatment is a behaviorist treatment based on the idea of positive reinforcement.

Distinguishing between positive and negative reinforcement can be difficult and may not always be necessary. Focusing on what is being removed or added and how it affects behavior can be more helpful. An event that punishes behavior for some may reinforce behavior for others. Some reinforcement can include both positive and negative features, such as a drug addict taking drugs for the added euphoria (positive reinforcement) and also to eliminate withdrawal symptoms (negative reinforcement). Reinforcement in the business world is essential in driving productivity. Employees are constantly motivated by the ability to receive a positive stimulus, such as a promotion or a bonus. Employees are also driven by negative reinforcement, such as by eliminating unpleasant tasks. Though negative reinforcement has a positive effect in the short term for a workplace (i. e. encourages a financially beneficial action), over reliance on a negative reinforcement hinders the ability of workers to act in a creative, engaged way creating growth in the long term.

A primary reinforcer, sometimes called an unconditioned reinforcer, is a stimulus that does not require pairing with a different stimulus in order to function as a reinforcer and most likely has obtained this function through the evolution and its role in species' survival. Examples of primary reinforcers include food, water, and sex. Some primary reinforcers, such as certain drugs, may mimic the effects of other primary reinforcers. While these primary reinforcers are fairly stable through life and across individuals, the reinforcing value of different primary reinforcers varies due to multiple factors (e. g., genetics, experience). Thus, one person may prefer one type of food while another avoids it. Or one person may eat much food while another eats very little. So even though food is a primary reinforcer for both individuals, the value of food as a reinforcer differs between them. A secondary reinforcer, sometimes called a conditioned reinforcer, is a stimulus or situation that has acquired its function as a reinforcer after pairing with a stimulus that functions as a reinforcer. This stimulus may be a primary reinforcer or another conditioned reinforcer (such as money). When trying to distinguish primary and secondary reinforcers in human examples, use the "caveman test." If the stimulus is something that a caveman would naturally find desirable (e. g. candy) then it is a primary reinforcer. If, on the other hand, the caveman would not react to it (e. g. a dollar bill), it is a secondary reinforcer. As with primary reinforcers, an organism can experience satisfaction and deprivation with secondary reinforcers.

A generalized reinforcer is a conditioned reinforcer that has obtained the reinforcing function by pairing with many other reinforcers and functions as a reinforcer under a wide variety of motivating operations. (One example of this is money because it is paired with many other reinforcers). In reinforcer sampling, a potentially reinforcing but unfamiliar stimulus is presented to an organism without regard to any prior behavior. Socially mediated reinforcement involves the delivery of reinforcement that requires the behavior of another organism. For example, another person is providing the reinforcement. The Premack principle is a special case of reinforcement elaborated by David Premack, which states that a highly preferred activity can be used effectively as a reinforcer for a less preferred activity. As no measured behavior is identified as being strengthened, there is controversy surrounding the use of the term noncontingent "reinforcement".

In his 1967 paper, Arbitrary and Natural Reinforcement, Charles Ferster proposed classifying reinforcement into events that increase the frequency of an operant behavior as a natural consequence of the behavior itself, and events that affect frequency by their requirement of human mediation, such as in a token economy where subjects are rewarded for certain behavior by the therapist. In 1970, Baer and Wolf developed the concept of "behavior traps." A behavior trap requires only a simple response to enter the trap, yet once entered, the trap cannot be resisted in creating general behavior change. It is the use of a behavior trap that increases a person's repertoire, by exposing them to the naturally occurring reinforcement of that behavior. Behavior traps have four characteristics:
They are "baited" with desirable reinforcers that "lure" the student into the trap. Only a low effort response already in the repertoire is necessary to enter the trap. Interrelated contingencies of reinforcement inside the trap motivate the person to acquire, extend, and maintain targeted skills. They can remain effective for long periods of time because the person shows few, if any, satiation effects. Thus, artificial reinforcement can be used to build or develop generalizable skills, eventually transitioning to naturally occurring reinforcement to maintain or increase the behavior. Another example is a social situation that will generally result from a specific behavior once it has met a certain criterion.

Behavior is not always reinforced every time it is emitted, and the pattern of reinforcement strongly affects how fast an operant response is learned, what its rate is at any given time, and how long it continues when reinforcement ceases. The simplest rules controlling reinforcement are continuous reinforcement, where every response is reinforced, and extinction, where no response is reinforced. Between these extremes, more complex schedules of reinforcement specify the rules that determine how and when a response will be followed by a reinforcer. Specific schedules of reinforcement reliably induce specific patterns of response, and these rules apply across many different species. The varying consistency and predictability of reinforcement is an important influence on how the different schedules operate. Many simple and complex schedules were investigated at great length by B. F. Skinner using pigeons.

Ratio schedule – the reinforcement depends only on the number of responses the organism has performed. Continuous reinforcement (CRF) – a schedule of reinforcement in which every occurrence of the instrumental response (desired response) is followed by the reinforcer. procedures:
Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) A conditioning procedure in which an undesired response is decreased by placing it on extinction or, less commonly, providing contingent punishment, while simultaneously providing reinforcement contingent on a desirable response. An example would be a teacher attending to a student only when they raise their hand, while ignoring the student when he or she calls out. Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) – Also known as omission training procedures, an instrumental conditioning procedure in which a positive reinforcer is periodically delivered only if the participant does something other than the target response. An example would be reinforcing any hand action other than nose picking. The PRP of a fixed interval schedule is frequently followed by a "scallop shaped" accelerating rate of response, while fixed ratio schedules produce a more "angular" response. fixed interval scallop: the pattern of responding that develops with fixed interval reinforcement schedule, performance on a fixed interval reflects subject's accuracy in telling time. Organisms whose schedules of reinforcement are "thinned" (that is, requiring more responses or a greater wait before reinforcement) may experience "ratio strain" if thinned too quickly. This produces behavior similar to that seen during extinction. Ratio strain: the disruption of responding that occurs when a fixed ratio response requirement is increased too rapidly. Ratio run: high and steady rate of responding that completes each ratio requirement. Usually higher ratio requirement causes longer post reinforcement pauses to occur. Partial reinforcement schedules are more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement schedules. Ratio schedules are more resistant than interval schedules and variable schedules more resistant than fixed ones. Momentary changes in reinforcement value lead to dynamic changes in behavior.