Positive Effects of Being Spanked as a Child: Distinction Between Nature of Punishments

Punishment is a vital tool of studying manners in operant conditioning, and it focuses on reducing and eliminating undesirable behavior. Chastisement refers to any alteration that occurs after comportment to diminish the probability of reoccurrence of the conduct. Regardless of the existing misconceptions about penalization, scholars have found that punishment is effective in relegating ill-behaviors if it follows the performance immediately and if it is applied steadily in an appropriate way. The focus of this script is to expound on positive and negative punishment and their application in the study of behavior.

Concurrent with Silvia, (2019), positive penalty limits the incidence of a specific trait in a person by introducing a depressing consequence immediately after the exhibition of certain conduct by an individual. There are myriad illustrations of positive punishment. For instance, when a student disrupts a lecture by receiving a phone call and resuming to talk inside the class. The teacher can discourage such an act by reprimanding the student in front of other learners.

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Additionally, the teacher can double the assignment of the student. The repercussions of receiving the phone call dissuade him from reiterating the deed in the future. A boss can criticize a lazy employee in front of the whole staff to deject laziness. Most probably, the employee will strive to improve to avert embarrassments. In the two scenarios, the lazy worker and negligent student receive positive punishments. The immediate aversive stimuli to limit the repetition of the ill-manners are public criticism from the employer and the teacher’s reprimand.

In 2018, Cherry reported that parents are averse to any form of positive punishment that causes unpleasant physical aftermaths.

Conversely, negative punishment decreases the frequency of a specific unwanted character by removing a precise adored item from the person’s life (Guimarães et al., 2019). For example, if siblings start fighting over who gets to start playing with a new toy, and the parent takes the toy away. The price of fighting, which is the withdrawal of the favorite toy by the parent, discourages the kids from having game fights. When a driver pays a fine of $300 from police for parking his car at an illegal site, the police officer reduces the uninvited behavior of illegal parking by taking away the driver’s money, which is the driver’s pleasurable stimulus. In the two examples, the persons learn that to retain their favorable stimulus, they must stop the misconduct.

According to Strohmeier et al., 2017, there are several similarities between negative and positive castigations. The chief similarity between the two is that both of them are under the concept of operant training as a means of studying demeanours. Additionally, they equally aim at diminishing ill-conducts from a person. Moreover, they are both dependent on the same factors for the efficient achievement of the intended goal. The factors include; first is contiguity, which implies to the immediacy of the conduct and stimuli. In both events, the stimuli should follow the behavior instantaneously to suppress the ill-manners effectively. A delay in reprisal is not effectual in controlling bad conduct, for instance, imprisonment after a long duration of court procedures does not change the inmates’ traits after the elapse of the sentence duration. The second factor is that both types consider the nature of dependence relating the punishment and the ill-character in question. The last factor is consistency- for complete eradication of the evil trait, the presentation of punishments ought to follow the demonstration of the conduct every time. Another similarity is evident in the ineffectiveness of the two types. The high number of adult criminals is proof that punishment did not work for such groups during childhood. Moreover, once convicts are free, they immediately resume their past prohibited dealings.

The distinction between positive and negative punishment is best vivid in their definition. Positive penalty works by presenting a negative upshot after the occurrence of an unwanted character. Let's say, spanking a kid to discourage a bad habit of throwing tantrums. On the other hand, negative forfeit involves removing a beloved stimulus following the happening of the misbehavior, such as, prohibiting a child from watching a favorite telly program when he fails to finish the school assignment.

In conclusion, both positive and negative punishments are effectual in training individuals to discontinue bad traits. Most importantly, the durability of the change is dependent on the consistency, immediacy, and appropriate choice of the stimuli to affect the most needed transformation. Diverse groups of individuals and situations necessitate the implementation of varied stimuli to achieve the objectives in mind. The long term and short term effects of using a specific method are worth considering to avoid incidences of defiance or adjustments to adapt to the punishment after the execution of a particular type of penalty.