Difference between positive and negative reinforcement

BEHAVIOUR AND MIND
SHORT ANSWER STYLE
ESSAYS ASSESSMENT 2

Table of Contents
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Question:1....................................................................................................................................3
Question:2....................................................................................................................................3
Question:3....................................................................................................................................4
Question:4....................................................................................................................................5
Question:5....................................................................................................................................5
Question:6....................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

MAIN BODY
Question:1
Difference between positive and negative reinforcement
The act of reinforcement involves enhancing the probability of any particular behaviour to be
occurr in the future. This includes two types of act which can either be positive or negative.
Reinforcement is always aims to increase the responsiveness of the stimuli.
Positive reinforcement refers to delivering of motivating stimulus to the individual in order to
increase the frequency of the same behaviour to be occurr in the future. It involves adding
flexibility to increase the likelihood of a behaviour. There are many example related to this
concept of psychology which plays an important role in obtaining desired actions from a person
(Klöbl and et.al., 2020). For example, a teacher praising student in the class for obtaining first
position. This would always encourage students to obtain first position in order to get recognized
and accordingly the performance of the class gets improved. On the other hand, negative
reinforcement is the act to avoid certain stimulus in order to get something better in behaviour. It
involves removing flexibility to increase the probability of the desired act. For example, fining
those who drive without wearing helmet. Here by charging fines, the cops can ensure that all
drivers must wear helmet while driving.
Negative and positive reinforcement differ from the punishment as the former is meant for
encouraging a particular act while the latter is meant for discouraging some behaviour. It aims at
reducing future likelihood of occurring the same behaviour. Punishment can also be positive or
negative. Example of positive punishment is touching hot iron and gets skin burnt while,
negative punishment is disallowing student to appear for exam as he caught cheating during
examination.
Question:2
In order to accomplish communication, a process called an electrochemical process has been
used by neurons. Neurons are unit or cell forming part of the whole nervous system. They act as
a transmission unit between nervous system and other cells through a specific connections
known as synapses (Patrimonial and Etwall., 2018). Synapses facilitates receiving and sending
information between neurons and others cells. Thus, neuronal communication takes place
through various structures like axons, soma, synapses and dendrites. The process begins when
sensory receptors actually receives, or come across sound, pain, light or temperature known as