Question

Whenever Mr. Kerrigan picked up his young son, Billie, from soccer practice he would have to drive past a Dairy Queen. Every time Billie saw the large Dairy Queen sign, Billie would begin to scream. Mr. Kerrigan did not like his son’s screaming. To make his son stop screaming for ice cream, Mr. Kerrigan would pull over and buy ice cream for Billie. This stopped Billie’s screaming. In this short example, what is an example of positive reinforcement? What is an example of negative reinforcement? (Hint: both Billie and his dad are being conditioned in this story). How could Billie’s dad use conditioning to prevent Billie from screaming in the future?

Answer 1

An example of positive reinforcement is the reward system which is given to Bilie in the form of ice cream which he likes the most as to overcome the unwanted behavior which here is given as crying. An example of negative reinforcement would be that Billie will be told that he will not be given icecream if he cries when driving past dairy queen. Considering the fact that Billie would like to avoid the negative consequence as he likes ice cream very much, his crying behavior will naturally come down as stop as they drive by Dairy Queen.

Negative reinforcement accompanied by positive reinforcement would be the one that shall be applied here. Billie's father initially would go for positive reinforcement standalone without introduction of negative reinforcement. After a few days, negative reinforcement will be introduced and on being successful, the reward system shall be delivered. Following a few weeks, Billie's father would post only negative reinforcement stating that he will be awarded ice cream by the end of the day. After a few weeks, ice cream shall be rewarded once in a week, then once in a month and finally extinguished.