Question

A child is paid $100 for every A that he earns on his report card. This is:

A) Negative Reinforcement
B) Positive Reinforcement
C) Negative Punishment
D) Positive Punishment

Answer 1

A child being paid $100 for each A on their report card is an example of positive reinforcement. This operant conditioning technique involves adding a stimulus (money) to increase the likelihood of the desired behavior (earning As) being repeated.

Step-by-step explanation:

A child being paid $100 for every A earned on his report card is an example of positive reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement is a concept from operant conditioning where adding a stimulus following a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again in the future. In this instance, the monetary reward acts as the added stimulus that encourages the child to continue earning A grades. It is comparable to providing a toy to a child who cleans his room to motivate the repetition of the cleaning behavior in the future.

It's important to distinguish between reinforcement and punishment. While reinforcement aims to increase a behavior, punishment aims to decrease it. Both can be either positive (adding something) or negative (taking something away), but in this specific question, we're dealing with reinforcement through the addition of a positive stimulus, i.e., money, which makes the option B) Positive Reinforcement the correct answer.