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Future behaviour: Thomas will rub his hands when they are wet.
When the light goes green at a traffic light, the car in front of Sarah doesnt move. She hates
when this happens and from experience knows that blasting her car horn gets cars that are in
front of her out of her way. She dutifully blasts the horn and the car moves out of her way.
Blasting the car horn to remove a car in front is an example of negative reinforcement.
Why is this negative reinforcement?
The car stuck in front of Sarah is aversive to her and she wants it removed. She blasts her
horn at the car and it moves out of the way (its removed). She knows from experience that
blasting her horn like this gets rid of these annoying cars and so continues to do it, therefore
negative reinforcement is occurring.
Future behaviour: Sarah will blast the horn when an annoying car is in front of her.
Future behaviour: wipers will be turned on when there is water on the windscreen.
Screaming!
Timmy doesnt want to eat carrots but his parents keep trying to get him to eat them. At
dinner time, if there are any carrots on his plate he will scream and shout until they are taken
off his plate. His parents always give in to the tantrums and take away the carrots because his
tantrums are becoming increasingly severe and last longer.
Behaviour: screaming.
Tearing Trousers.
Jim is 8 years old and he hates wearing the new trousers his mother bought him. He learned
in the past that his mother wont make him wear trousers that are in any way damaged so he
deliberately tears the knees on the new trousers. Now that the new trousers are damaged Jims
mother throws them out and so he doesnt have to wear them.
Damaging a pair of trousers so you don't have to wear them is an example of negative
reinforcement.
Why is this negative reinforcement?
The trousers are aversive to Jim and he didnt want to wear them at all. From experience he
knows he never has to wear damaged trousers and so his behaviour of damaging the trousers
leads to them being removed, therefore negative reinforcement has occurred.
Future behaviour: Jim will tear any trousers he doesnt want to wear.
Future behaviour: Paul will give his teacher the NO picture when he wants
something taken away.
Negative reinforcement can also occur when something is prevented from happening. John
has learned that to prevent burning his hands all he has to do is put on the oven gloves. So the
behaviour of putting on the oven gloves is an example of negative reinforcement.
Future behaviour: John will put on oven gloves when taking a hot bowl out of the
microwave.
Pinching!
Adele doesnt want to do her spelling programme at school. She has noticed that if she
pinches her teacher when the spelling booklet is taken out, the spelling programme is
stopped. Since Adele hates doing spellings she has now started pinching her teacher every
single time the spellings are taken out and every time she pinches her teacher the spelling
programme is always stopped.
Pinching her teacher so Adele doesn't have to do her spellings is an example of negative
reinforcement.
Why is this negative reinforcement?
The spelling programme is present before Adele pinches her teacher. After she pinches her
teacher the spelling programme is removed. Adele has also started pinching her teacher every
time it is taken out and so there has been an increase in the future frequency of this behaviour.
Therefore her pinches are being negatively reinforced.
Future behaviour: Adele will pinch her teacher when she doesnt want to do her
spelling programme.
Crying.
John and Michelle decide to go to a party with their son Adam. Adam doesnt want to be
there so when they get to the party he starts to cry loudly. John and Michelle dont like to see
their son upset and so make the decision to leave the party and go home. His parents are
noticing that he has started to cry every time he is in a situation he doesnt want to be in and
they have been allowing him to leave.
Behaviour: cries.
Future behaviour: Mike will hit the STOP button when the alarm goes off.
Putting on Sun-Cream.
Brian and Angela are going out for a walk. They notice the sun a scorching outside and know
from experience that if they go outside without putting sun cream on they will get sun burn.
They both put sun cream on, head out for their walk and dont get sun burned.
Negative reinforcement occurs when you put sun-cream on to prevent being burned.
Why is this negative reinforcement?
This is another example of negative reinforcement occurring when something is prevented
from happening. Brian and Angela know from experience that if they go outside in the hot
sun with sun cream on then they will prevent themselves getting burned. So putting on the
sun cream is negatively reinforced by preventing sun burn.
Future behaviour: Brian and Angela will put on sun-cream before going out in the
hot sun.
Scraping off the burnt part of your toast is an example of negative reinforcement.
Why is this negative reinforcement?
The burned part of the toast is not something you want. So youve learned from experience
that by getting a knife to scrape if off gets you a piece of toast you can eat. So when this
happens again in the future youll take out the knife and start scraping.
Future behaviour: when the toast is burned youll take out a knife to scrape it off.