Question

Ms. Miller asked Steven to take out his pencil and begin working on his math worksheet. Steven did not respond. Ms. Miller removed tokens from Steven’s token board without saying a word. In the future, when Ms. Miller asked Steven to take out his pencil and to begin work, without hesitation, Steven gets right to work (i.e., noncompliance decreases). • Antecedent: "Take out your pencil." • Behavior: Noncompliance, specifically, not following the teacher's direction the first time that the direction is given. • Consequence: Removal of token from the token board. Which operation best describes this scenario? a) Positive reinforcement. b) Negative reinforcement. c) Positive punishment. d) Negative punishment.

Answer 1

Negative punishment

Step-by-step explanation:

Reinforcement refers to do something that will make the behavior to take place more frequently. It can be positive or negative:

• Positive reinforcement: consists in GIVING something we like that will reinforce the conduct
• Negative reinforcement: consists in TAKING away something we don't like so that the conduct will be reinforced.

On the other way, punishments refers to do something that will make the behavior occur less frequently. I can also be positive or negative:

• Negative punishment: consists in TAKING AWAY something we like, so the conduct is punished.
• Positive punishment: consists in GIVING something we don't like, so the conduct is punished.

In the example, the behavior was a noncompliance behavior, therefore we don't want this to keep occuring so we're talking about PUNISHMENT.

Since the consequence was the REMOVAL of a token (something we like) we can conclude that this is an example of negative punishment.