What are Consequences?
Within Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA), there are two main types of consequences: reinforcement and punishment.
When reinforcement and punishment are heard by most people, the common assumption is that reinforcement is “good” and punishment is “bad”. Typically people will think of reinforcement as a reward for doing the right thing, whereas punishment is equivalent to scolding and placing a child in time-out.
In ABA, reinforcement and punishment have different meanings.
Reinforcement is anything that increases a behavior in the future. Punishment is anything that decreases a behavior in the future.
For example, you could attempt to scold a child for spilling their food on the floor in an attempt to punish (or reduce) the behavior next time they sit down to eat. However, if the child enjoys the attention they get from being scolded, or if they just don’t care about being scolded, they may continue to spill their food at mealtimes (sometimes even on purpose just to get that reaction from you). In this case, you may have reinforced their behavior instead of punishing their behavior by scolding them.
Reinforcement
There are two types of reinforcement: positive and negative.
Positive means we are adding something to the environment, and negative means we are taking something away from the environment.
Positive reinforcement means you are adding something to increase the behavior (e.g. adding a lollipop to increase homework completion).
Negative reinforcement means you are removing something to increase the behavior (e.g. removing pain after taking medicine to increase taking medicine in the future).
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Punishment
Just like how there are two types of reinforcement, there are also two types of punishment: positive and negative.
Positive punishment means you are adding something to reduce the behavior (e.g. adding a scolding after a child lies to reduce future lying).
Negative punishment means you are removing something to decrease the behavior (e.g. removing access to the T.V. after catching your child in a lie to decrease future lying).
