In: Psychology
Decide which of the following concepts are most applicable to each scenario: differential reinforcement of other behavior, avoidance contingency, punishment by prevention of reinforcer, punishment by loss of reinforcer, or avoidance of loss.
Defend your answer 175 words each, using citations as needed.
5. Chad continues to stay in school and is a B-minus student due to the procrastination aspect of his work ethic. He has been complaining lately about school and thinking about withdrawing. His comments about the teacher, the class, the work and his grades are starting to get annoying so his mom decides to only reinforce his verbal behavior every 5 minutes he talks to her without making a negative comment about school.
Here, for this example, differential reinforcement of other behavior is the most applicable. According to Malott and Shane (2014), a reinforcer is presented after a fixed interval of time. And the interval is usually timed from the last reinforcer or the last response of interest, whichever had occurred last. Chad's mom, in this example, responds only after 5 minutes and since she wants that Chad needs to cease talking negatively about his school and teachers, she does not make any negative comment about them either while talking to Chad. As Chad’s mom desires for him to cease speaking negatively, she responds in fixed intervals of five minutes with zero or no response during Chad’s five minutes of conversation. Since, Chad's comments regarding the teacher, the class, the work and his grades were starting to get annoying, Chad’s mother here is choosing to reinforce his verbal behavior using other behaviors which is to not respond to his negative comments. By changing her behavior and using other behavior to reinforce Chad’s behavior, she might be able to decrease Chad’s negative communication about his school.