Types of reinforcers and punishers

The following information is from Unit 3 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• Unlearned reinforcers and punishers
• Unlearned or unconditioned reinforcers: stimuli that do not need to be paired with another reinforcer (i.e. food, water, warmth, and activities)
• Unlearned or unconditioned punishers: stimuli that do not need to be paired with another punisher (i.e. loud noise, painful events, and uncomfortable heat or cold)

• Learned reinforcers and punishers
• Neutral stimuli: stimuli that have no effect on behavior
• Learned or conditioned reinforcer: neutral stimuli followed by an unlearned reinforcer (i.e. verbal praise followed by allowing a student to play a game or giving stars for positive behavior where the stars equal minutes a student can play with a toy)
• Types
• Social reinforcer: teacher behavior in response to a student with voice tone, verbal praise, attention, or smiling
• Token reinforcer: points or other tokens in response to a student’s positive behavior that he can trade for other reinforcers
• Grandma’s Rule AKA Premack’s Principle: preferred activities reinforce unpreferred activities (i.e. “You may watch TV if you finish your homework for math”)
• Contingent: the reinforcer is only delivered when the student shows the desired behavior
• Learned or conditioned punisher: neutral stimuli followed by an unlearned punisher (i.e. negative verbal words like “no” or “stop” followed by a parent spanking her child or removing a privilege)

Reinforcement, Punishment and Extinction

The following information is from Unit 2 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• Punishment vs. extinction
• Punishment: denying a reinforcement
• Extinction: denying a reinforcement for only one type of behavior

• How to use consequent stimuli:
• Use reinforcement when you want to increase or strengthen a behavior
• Use punishment (no reinforcement in this unit) when you want to decrease or weaken a behavior
• Time out: deny all reinforcement for all behavior for a specified period of time
• Extinction: deny reinforcement for one behavior

Examples of when to use the consequent stimuli

1. A mother previously solved her young son’s tantrums with attention (telling him to stop or giving him something to appease him). A behaviorist helped the mother to use punishment and reinforcement by giving her three procedures of how she ought to respond to her son. The son’s behavior then improved.

Son’s behavior	Mother’s behavior
Shows a problem behavior (i.e. tantrum or kicking)	Gives him a warning signal
Continues a problem behavior	Puts him in his room and ignores him for a specified time
Plays and behaves appropriately	Gives him attention, praise, and affection

2. A teacher previously dealt with problem behaviors of two students by using threats that were ineffective. A behaviorist helped the teacher to use extinction and reinforcement by giving her three procedures of how she ought to respond to the two students and the class as a whole. The two students’ behavior improved.

Teacher’s behavior	Students’ behavior
Makes rules clear and repeats them as needed	Students know what teacher expects
Ignores problem behaviors and gives attention to students with appropriate behaviors	Students who show problem behaviors do not get teacher attention
Praise students for behavior improvement with specific praise and privileges (i.e. “you get to go to recess early because you finished your work neatly and carefully ”)	Students who show appropriate behaviors get teacher attention, praise, and privileges

Terms:

• Consequent stimulus: follows a response and strengthens it or weakens it
• Reinforcer: follows a response and strengthens it
• Reinforcement: the procedure to use a reinforcing stimulus
• Punisher: follows a response and weakens it
• Punishment: the procedure to use a punishing stimulus
• Extinction: follows a response and weakens it by providing no reinforcing stimulus for that response
• Time out: follows a response and weakens it by providing no reinforcing stimulus of any response for a period of time

Teaching: encouraging, discouraging, and maintaining behavior

The following information is from Unit 1 of the book Teaching: A Course in Psychology by Wesley C. Becker, Siegfried Engelmann, and Don R. Thomas. 

Note: Science Research Associates published the book in 1971. I am unsure if the publishers reprinted the book or if it is available to buy. I found it through a university inter-library loan program. I suspect that Becker or Engelmann use the book or some form of it in their special education teaching classes at the University of Oregon.

• Teaching a new behavior to children
• Three step process
• Teacher presents a stimulus or task to the student
• Student responds
• Teacher reinforces response
• Teacher does not reinforce response when:
• The student does not respond
• The student makes an unrelated response

• Terms
• Set: group of things or relationships that share properties
• Stimulus: event in environment that influences behavior
• Functional definition of a stimulus: provides the environmental event, the procedure, and the effect on behavior
• For example, a functional definition for a student doing his homework everyday and then playing a video game would be: the environmental event playing a video occurred after homework completion and increased working on homework
• The video game reinforces homework completion
• Students vary by what is truly reinforcing or punishing
• Procedural definition of a stimulus: provides the environmental event and effect on behavior
• For example, a procedural definition for a student doing his homework and then playing a video game would be: the student will have access to a video game after he completes his homework
• Concept instance: members in a stimulus set in a concept class (i.e. cats and dogs are members of the concept class pets)
• Not-instance: members of another concept class that is NOT taught (i.e. cars and shoes are not members of the concept class pets)
• Preceding stimuli: events in the environment that influence how a child responds
• Task signals: signals related to the teaching objective, such as concept instances and not-instances
• Prompting signals: signals that the teacher uses to get the correct response
• The prompt is unrelated to the teaching and must be faded out
• Others to be defined: attention signals, “do it” signals, and directions
• Response or task response: how the students responds to receive reinforcement
• Consequent stimuli: stimulus events that occur after responses
• Reinforcing stimuli: strengthen responses
• Punishing stimuli: weaken responses
• Extinction: lack of reinforcement to response