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"It is a happy talent to know how to play."

If You’re Not a Psychologist, “Positive Reinforcement” Probably Means the OPPOSITE of What You Think It Does

3/3/2017

7 Comments

 
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“You’re a very positive person.”

“He has a lot of negative traits.”

“You have to weigh the positive and the negative aspects.”

In English, we use the words “positive” and “negative” all the time. Colloquially, these words often mean “good” and “bad.” But in psychology, that’s not what they mean. 

Instead, “positive” means you add something, and “negative” means you take something away.

Which means that when you use the terms “positive reinforcement” and “negative reinforcement,” there’s a decent chance you’re using them incorrectly -- and I cringe just a little on the inside.

So let’s set the record straight.

Positive reinforcement means you reinforce a desired behavior by adding a reward. An example of this would be a teacher telling her class, “If you pass the spelling test, you get an extra five minutes of recess!”

Negative reinforcement happens when you reinforce a desired behavior by removing something undesirable. For example, the teacher tells her class, “If you pass the spelling test, you don’t have to clean the chalkboards after school.”

What most people mean when they say “negative reinforcement” is actually “positive punishment,” or adding (“positive”) something bad (“punishment”) to disincentivize an undesirable behavior.

For example, a teacher uses positive punishment when she tells her class, “If you don’t stop fooling around, I'll give you a detention.”

But sometimes, when people say “negative reinforcement,” they actually mean “negative punishment” -- or taking away (“negative”) something good (“punishment”) to discourage a certain behavior.

For example, the teacher telling her class, “If you don’t stop fooling around, you don’t get to go to recess.”

So now you understand the terminology -- and you’re probably wondering, Do any of these methods work better than the others? ​

The answer is... It's hard to tell. And.. it depends. 
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Psychologists have been debating this very topic for over 100 years, with differing results. But new research is shedding some interesting light. 

For example, according to a study by Dr. Eveline Crone and colleagues, which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience (2008),  children age 8-9 respond better to positive reinforcement ("Good job!" "Well done!"), and disproportionately more inaccurately to negative feedback (i.e., positive punishment). 

Meanwhile, the brains of adults, as well as children age 11-12, respond better to negative feedback. 

In the study, researchers gave participants from the 8-9, 11-12, and 18-25 year-old age groups a computer task while they lay in the MRI scanner. If they did the task correctly, a tick appeared on the screen. Otherwise, a cross appeared.

The MRI scans showed which parts of the brain were activated, and improvements in perormance were measured across trials.


In younger children, performance improved substantially more when the feedback was positive. The opposite proved true in the case of older children and young adults. For them, negative feedback improved performance more than positive feedback.

There were also differences in brain activity. To quote the paper:
​
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and superior parietal cortex were more active after negative feedback for adults, but after positive feedback for children (8–9 years of age). For 11- to 13-year-olds, these regions did not show differential feedback sensitivity, suggesting that the transition occurs around this age. Pre-supplementary motor area/anterior cingulate cortex, in contrast, was more active after negative feedback in both 11- to 13-year-olds and adults, but not 8- to 9-year-olds.

One of the interesting aspects of this study is the three-way divide. Most studies would have only looked at children vs. adults. Indeed, a difference between kids who were only four years apart was not something Crone et al. expected. However, it remains unclear if differences in brain activity were caused by changes in the brain, or changes in cognition. 

It could be a simple matter of maturity -- "you did something wrong" is more complicated to understand than "you did something right." Praise/reward tells you to keep doing what you're doing; criticism/punishment tells you to figure out what you did wrong, and change it.

Moreover, responding to negative feedback might help students 
avoid the confirmation bias and lead to better reasoning.

Another study out of Washington University in St. Louis found that losses (punishments) had a measured behavioral impact two to three times greater than gains (rewards). 

The study divided participants (Ps) into different conditions. In one condition, Ps listened to a series of clicking noises and indicated whether they heard more clicks in the left or right ear. In another condition, Ps watched flashes of light on a screen and indicated whether they saw more flashes on the right or left side. The number of clicks and flashes were randomized and often very close together, making the task challenging. The students were often uncertain of the correct response.

When Ps made a choice, the researchers randomly displayed a token for 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 cents that was given as a reward for the "correct" answer -- or taken away as a punishment for an "incorrect" answer.

As expected, Ps tended to repeat the previous choice when rewarded -- and that tendency grew stronger as the reward increased. When punished, though, Ps strongly avoided the previous choice.

However, unlike the response to a reward, no matter how large a sum was lost, the students showed a strong, consistent tendency to avoid the previous choice. This was true in both conditions, demonstrating that the stimulus itself didn’t matter.

As any economist could probably tell you, it's intuitive to think that a reward of 25 cents would have the same magnitude of effect as losing 25 cents... but humans are loss averse. We don't make rational decisions -- we make highly emotional ones.

This study is interesting because most studies that focus on the effects of rewards and punishments on behavior are complex -- and it's difficult to separately evaluate the distinct effects of rewards and punishments. But because the stimulus in this study — clicks or flashes — was random, the researchers were able to more easily pinpoint the effect of a reward or punishment on the subsequent behavior.

In other words: fines may be more effective at creating behavioral change than bribes. 

Pretty cool, huh? Plus, it's always nice to have an example of beliefs that feel good ("rewards work better than punishments")... that are actually wrong. ​

If you want to learn more about learning and cognition, the book you've got to read is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's a bestseller for a reason.
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7 Comments
Zeph
3/17/2017 05:59:32 pm

A few points.

1) As I mentioned in response to another post, engineering also has a different usage of positive and negative than common speech, no problem there. But I found the above description confusing in several regards.

You start by describing positive and negative reinforcement; fine. But then you describe a brain study where kids receive a tick for positive, and a cross for negative. How is the latter removing something undesirable? The experiment seems more like contrasting positive reward (adding a tick) vs positive punishment (adding a cross), by your terminology. Could you elaborate? Are you saying that that positive punishment may constitute negative feedback or reinforcement? If so, you may need to clarify a good deal.

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Zeph
3/17/2017 06:27:14 pm

2) The following is reflection, not psych-lab research, and it may or may not have relevance.

I have found in life that in repeated personal interactions, there is a difference between short term efficacy and long term effect.

For example, "nagging" someone about doing or not doing X around the household can be quite efficacious in the short term (this would be positive punishment by your intial terminology, and negative reinforcement as used in the brain study example).

However, it tends to foster longer term pushback of a variety of types. As my partner and I consciously moved towards a more positive reinforcement model, a lot of problematic behaviors dissipated (eg: "forgetting" or "avoiding contact"); and since this was less effective short term, we could only make the shift by accepting that it wouldn't always work right away. In the long run it has been both more effective (because of not creating resistance) as well, it just took longer. And of course, acceptance that it doesn't ALWAYS work - but neither did negative reinforcement. The payoffs of shifting from negative to positive reinforcements took some while to fully manifest, but we are far happier together now a days and more stuff gets done to mutual benefit.

So I'm wondering if there could be any nuance of rewards vs punishment (in repeated interaction) that could be missed in these short term lab experiments, which would call into question the generalization that "negative reinforcement works better than positive". Both the timeframe (resistance takes time to build up,as well as to dissipate) and the definition of "works" (how narrowly or broadly we look at results) need to be considered before making that generalization to the real world, I suspect.

I have stressed "repeated interaction" because strategies/outcomes for issues like the "prisoner's dilemma" differ for one time and repeated contexts, as well they might for punishments and rewards.

Outside the lab, this is not a trivial issue in human interaction. I have had better results in trying to reinforce some positive trait in other people when possible, rather than in suppressing something I found negative. And I do not find this to be "manipulative"; indeed, choosing which part of another human's psyche we wish to interact with (using which part of our own in turn) is one of the key choices we all make (consciously or more often unconsciously) in navigating our incarnations. If I let a wounded part of me get enmeshed with a wounded part of somebody else, well, not much good comes of it. If we can be allies helping each other to be conscious, wonderful things can happen. And a lot of the difference is in learning how often a win/win or mutual positive reinforcement is available (not always, but more often than we tend to habitually act on).

Yes, all this involves a more complex interaction with more dimensions than ticks vs crosses on a lab screen. But it causes me caution before generalizing the limited lab experiments to life stragegies.

Your thoughts?

Reply
Zeph
3/17/2017 06:38:34 pm

Oops, part of my first comment didn't get recorded. so:

1A) Is using a fine really a "negative" reinforcement because it takes something desirable away (money)? Whereas a caning would be positive because it adds welts? Would adding a demerit be positive or negative reinforcement?

Basically, I'm questioning the utility of the "adding" versus "removing" concept, as in life many times the same action could be framed as "adding X" or "removing Y" depending on framing, which does not make for a robust distinction. Punishing versus rewarding seems much more robust and less dependent on phrasing, than adding vs subtracting, as a basis for describing some dynamic as positive or negative.

I've seen "positive reinforcement" used to describe rewarding desired behaviors and "negative reinforcement" used to describe punishing undesired behaviors. That conceptualization may be out of touch with current psychological terminology, but it does make sense. I'm having more trouble with "adding" vs "removing" as a useful underlying conceptual framework for positive and negative.

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Zeph
3/17/2017 06:45:51 pm

And just briefly - all this ties into my philosophy on Political Correctness.

I see PC as largely an attempt to use (asserted!) social norms to shame people into doing what one wants, ie: classical negative reinforcement. One problem with shaming of this sort is that the incentive one give the recipient is to avoid being punished or negatively reinforced - and complying with our demands is only one way to escape from our lash. Following a populist who tells you that you are the real victim and YOU can claim the moral high ground is another. Enough for now, just wanted to share that there is a tie-in.

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Phyr
9/16/2023 07:05:51 pm

Well, that was an interesting read. It does appear that even interdisciplinary nomenclature on what is colloquial is garbled and complex! We sure could use some refinement. Glad to hear your use of psychological principles of a lab environment mapped onto real life. That's what its all about, dude. I tried to read Freud's completed works but it was just him fantastically musing on falling asleep for 200 pages, so then I fell asleep. Knockout writer that guy, shame he gets the accolade of father of psychology because he's certainly a contender for top 10 literary greats.

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Roy Bank link
11/28/2017 03:36:42 am

I know by using the power of positive thinking one can get anything he wants in his life. But another fact of the matter about this positive thinking is, sometimes it can also backfire. I don't mean to say that, you need to become a psychologist to avail the actual benefits of positive thinking. No, absolutely not. I mean to say that you should not go into the state of depression while dreaming about a heavenly, grinning future. 'The way you think, you will attract the things accordingly'- this is nothing but the law of attraction. So, you need to be careful while deciding to change your life by the virtue of positive thinking. Better, you should hire a life mentor who can give you the right kind of motivation that you really want to make the necessary transition.

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