What Is Positive Reinforcement And How To Use It?

What makes certain behaviors repeat themselves? How do we increase your frequency? Positive reinforcement is about all of this; a procedure used especially in education and behavior therapy that seeks to enhance desired behaviors.

What else do we know about positive reinforcement? How is it used? What types of reinforcements are there? How are they different from punishment? If you want to know the answer to these and other questions, as well as discover possible reinforcements to apply in your daily life, keep reading!

What is positive reinforcement and how can we use it?

Positive reinforcement is a widely used resource in behavioral therapy and education. This type of reinforcement includes all those elements that increase the likelihood of some response appearing ; that is, all those things that would help us cement a behavior and make it show up more often (usually these are appropriate and positive behaviors, like being good at the table).

A key figure in this area is BF Skinner, an American psychologist famous for his behaviorist theory; he suggested that positive reinforcement is what allows you to reinforce certain patterns of behavior. According to him, positive reinforcement is everything that helps us to repeat a desired behavior.

Skinner stood out for systematically describing the characteristics of this type of learning, in addition to applying it in various fields (mainly in education).

Positive reinforcement is also a technique that is part of operant conditioning, a learning system based on the application of reinforcements and punishments to increase or decrease the probability of the appearance of certain behaviors. Through this type of procedure, the person creates an association between his behavior and its consequences.

Examples of positive reinforcement

What can serve as positive reinforcement? Practically everything. It can be praise (verbal reinforcement), objects, gestures, gifts, prizes, words, food…

Depending on the nature and characteristics of positive reinforcement, it belongs to one group or another. That is,  there are several types of positive reinforcement. Throughout the article, we’ll know what these types are.

How to use positive reinforcement

There are a number of assumptions that will make positive reinforcement more effective, and they have to do with how we use this procedure and how we choose the type of reinforcement:

• Immediate : Ideally, positive reinforcement is applied immediately upon the appearance of the desired behavior (ie, the one we want to increase).

• Consecutive : Positive reinforcement should appear right after the desired behavior, not before or during.
• Contingent : We must always apply positive reinforcement when the behavior we want to increase appears.
• Periodic : this procedure must be extended in time so that the desired behavior is consolidated.
• Choice of reinforcements : we must choose reinforcements that are new, diverse and that motivate the person.

On the other hand, when using positive reinforcement, we must also consider the following in order for it to be effective: We must specify precisely the behavior we intend to enhance.  In addition, we will control contingencies (or other reinforcements) that may be competing with ours.

Finally, we will prevent the person from becoming “sated” with the reinforcement (that is, preventing them from getting bored with it), and for that we must control the situation so that the duration of the reinforcement is not excessive, estimating its ideal time.

Reinforcement and punishment

To understand more clearly what positive reinforcement is, we will also define what reinforcement and punishment consist of, antagonistic procedures.

Reinforcement, as we said, is any stimulus that increases the probability of the appearance of a behavior ; this can be positive (when the appearance of some element increases behavior) or negative (when the removal of some element also increases behavior).

An example of positive reinforcement would be praising a child each time they eat breakfast. On the other hand, a negative reinforcement would be to remove the tasks she doesn’t like whenever she finishes her homework. Both behaviors (praising and removing tasks), if repeated over time after the behaviors we want to promote, would increase the probability of the desired behaviors appearing (in this case, the child has all breakfast and finishes all homework ).

Meanwhile,  punishment is the opposite of reinforcement; it would be anything that reduces the probability of the appearance of those behaviors that we want to eliminate. If the punishment is positive, we talk about the appearance of certain elements (for example, putting a child in front of the wall, giving a lecture or lecture, etc.). On the other hand, in negative punishment, something the child wants is withdrawn (for example, taking time off the TV, prohibiting him from going out on the weekend, etc.)

Differences between procedures

Thus, the essential difference between “positive or negative” of both procedures is the appearance (positive) or withdrawal/disappearance (negative) of some element. On the other hand, what characterizes the reinforcement procedure is that it seeks to enhance desired behaviors. Instead, punishment is aimed at eliminating unwanted behavior.

Types of positive reinforcement

There are sixteen types of positive reinforcement, grouped according to six criteria, according   to Vallejo’s Behavior Therapy Manual (2012). Do you want to meet them?

1. According to its origin

Positive reinforcement, depending on its origin (reinforcement value), can be classified as:

• Primers : have an innate value, like food.
• Secondary : they become reinforcers through learning and are more specific.
• Generalized : are multi-response reinforcers (eg money).

2. According to the reinforcement process

According to this criterion, positive reinforcement can be of two types:

• Extrinsic: the procedure is open and observable (eg, praise).

• Intrinsic: The procedure is hidden (eg a thought).

3. According to the administrator

Depending on who administers the positive reinforcement, it can be of two types:

• External:  Someone administers the reinforcement to the person.
• Self- reinforcement : it is the person who administers the reinforcement.

4. According to the receiver

Depending on the person receiving the reinforcement, the following are differentiated:

• Direct: the person himself receives the reinforcement.
• Vicar: the person observes how another person receives the reinforcement.

5. According to nature

Depending on its nature, positive reinforcement can be in the following ways:

• Material or tangible : has a physical entity (for example, a bicycle).
• Edible or manipulable : they are eaten or manipulated (eg jelly beans).
• Social : Interpersonal in nature, includes verbal and non-verbal language (eg, a hug).

• Activity : pleasant behaviors for the person (eg going to the movies).
• Premack’s Principle : when a low-frequency behavior increases its probability of occurrence when associated with a high-frequency one.

6. According to schedule

Finally, according to the schedule, we find the following types of reinforcements:

• Natural: they are likely to appear in the environment.
• Artificial: applied under specific conditions.

Educate through positive reinforcement

It is evident that the use of this technique offers very positive results in education. In addition, it is part of behavioral programs and broader treatments, such as ABA therapy ( Applied Behavior Analysis ), designed by clinical psychologist Ole Ivar Lovaas and especially indicated for children with autism.

As we said, positive reinforcement is also part of broader behavioral techniques or programs, such as differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors, differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors, etc. In all of them, positive reinforcement is used as yet another tool that allows us to reinforce and enhance the behaviors we want to maintain (ie, adequate or appropriate ones).

Furthermore, positive reinforcement is very appropriate not only to maintain desired behaviors, but also to create (establish) behaviors that do not yet exist.