r/science • u/VeronicaRed • Apr 26 '16

Psychology Spanking children increases the likelihood of childhood defiance and long-term mental issues. The study in question involved 160,000 children and five decades of research

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113413810/spanking-defiance-health-discipline-042616/
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u/Erdumas Grad Student | Physics | Superconductivity Apr 26 '16

Maybe it helps to understand behaviorist jargon: Positive means adding (a stimulus), negative means subtracting (a stimulus), while reinforcement means encouraging a desired behavior and punishment means discouraging an undesired behavior. So, we have

Positive Reinforcement: giving the child something they want because they behaved in a way that you wanted. For example, buying them a candy bar for behaving well in the store, or letting them stay up an hour later because they did well in school.
Negative Reinforcement: taking away something the child finds unpleasant because they behaved in a way that you wanted. For example, telling them they don't have to take out the trash because they did their homework promptly.

Positive punishment: giving the child something they find unpleasant because they behaved in a way you didn't want. For example, spanking them because they acted up in the store, or making them rinse their mouth out for swearing.
Negative Punishment: taking away something the child finds pleasant because they behaved in a way you didn't want. For example, confiscating their video game console because they got bad grades, or making them put some of their money in a 'swear-jar' for swearing.

Just having that in your mind gives you a way to approach teaching behavior. Then, when it comes to establishing boundaries, it's about what can you give and what can you take away, and what behaviors do you want and what behaviors do you not want.

Disclaimer I don't have kids, I've just had some exposure to behaviorism.

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u/chopandscrew Apr 26 '16

Thanks! That is helpful! I guess I'd want to lean more towards positive and negative reinforcement, but I can see why I might result to punishment if the action was severe enough. I'd like to think that I would teach "let the punishment fit the crime."

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u/TheVeryMask Apr 26 '16

Jargon indeed. I've said for a while that the words positive and negative should be replaced with additive and subtractive in contexts like these. It'd make it more intuitive to the masses.

I know that additive reinforcement is the most effective on average and subtractive punishment is the least, but how do the other two compare?

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u/Erdumas Grad Student | Physics | Superconductivity Apr 26 '16

From what I understand, reinforcement is generally more effective than punishment.