![]() I must assume, then, that Baron and Galizio are referring to an event that takes place at a particular time and in a particular context, and are questioning whether the reinforcement on that particular occasion is positive or negative. Given an appropriate history and context, any event can function as either a positive or a negative reinforcer. One cannot, of course, claim that any event is exclusively a positive or negative reinforcer in the sense that it is always just one of these. Without this essential clarification, the claim that a reinforcer is exclusively positive or negative always can be challenged by the assertion that the alternative form is the true basis for the reinforcing effect. The argument … is that positive and negative reinforcement are changes from one stimulus condition to another, not the simple presentation or removal of a stimulus. ![]() Their main discontent seems to arise from a perceived difficulty in distinguishing between the production and the removal (or prevention) of stimuli as a basis for the classification of reinforcing events: The tendency to equate negative reinforcement with punishment is not, however, a major source of Baron and Galizio's (2005) concern. Baron and Galizio (2005) however, seem to be unwilling to take the latter route, on the grounds of the uncertainty in specifying whether production or escape is the critical reinforcing event. ![]() Or perhaps we could drop the characterization of reinforcement as either positive or negative and just talk about different kinds of reinforcement: food, water, sex, escape, avoidance, and so on. I have not been able to come up with a satisfactory term, but I would not object in principle to such a suggestion. This, of course, is not what we ask them to do, so we lose the ones who are not willing or who are unprepared to work out the problem.Īnd so, I would welcome a substitute for the term negative reinforcement, a new term that removes the confusion of negative reinforcement with punishment while retaining the notion that escape and avoidance are kinds of reinforcement. (This remains true even after an extensive revision of that section.) I believe the difficulty here stems from conventions of ordinary speech, in which the term negative usually denotes the opposite of something positive having accepted a definition of positive reinforcement, and, in the process, equating it at least roughly with the everyday term reward, many then find it sensible to equate negative reinforcement with punishment. For example, readers of my book on coercion ( Sidman, 2000) who do not finish the book are most likely to have put it down permanently after they reached my presentation of the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement. In my experience, this has been true especially of readers and audiences who are being introduced to behavioral science. I certainly agree with their observation that the concept of negative reinforcement has caused confusion. I wondered, therefore, whether they were simply looking for another term that might encompass those data more precisely. They are as committed as anyone to a behavioral science based on data, and would never suggest that we throw data away simply because some of those data are difficult to classify. I am sure that Baron and Galizio (2005) and Michael (1975) are not recommending that we ignore the data from experiments on (or even from daily observations of) escape and avoidance behavior, the phenomena that give rise to the concept of negative reinforcement. It is not clear to me whether they are recommending simply a new terminological convention or whether they are suggesting something more fundamental-a change in basic principles, or at least a new way to conceptualize our data. In the present instance ( Baron & Galizio, 2005), however, I am puzzled-as I was when Jack Michael published his original paper suggesting that we abandon the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement ( Michael, 1975). ![]() ![]() Because of the many constructive contributions by Alan Baron and Mark Galizio, I have learned to pay close attention to whatever they have to say. ![]()
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