Final answer:
The student rushing home to avoid being grounded is demonstrating avoidance conditioning, which involves acting to prevent a negative outcome.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a student rushes home to avoid being grounded due to a curfew of midnight, this is an example of avoidance conditioning. Avoidance conditioning occurs when the behavior is motivated by the desire to prevent a negative outcome. In this case, the negative outcome is being grounded, and by returning home before curfew, the student is avoiding this undesirable event.
This differs from escape conditioning, where the negative stimulus is already present and the behavior is aimed at stopping the stimulus. It is not an example of positive reinforcement because there is no addition of a pleasant stimulus to increase behavior. Punishment involves a decrease in behavior by adding an unpleasant stimulus or removing a pleasant one, which does not align with the proactive behavior of the student in this scenario.