Shaping your Relationships: Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Wouldn’t it be nice to have more control over your relationships? Albeit, there are some things we inevitably do not have control over, such as our partner's behaviors or how a stranger treats us. But here is what we can control: our own responses and our own actions. This is powerful because our own actions can influence and shape our partners or strangers behaviors in the way that we desire them to be.

If you want to take more control of your life, here is a different take on how to influence your interactions' direction. One of the most important concepts from behavior analysis is the concept of punishment and reinforcement and understanding how it applies to everyday life. If you aren’t familiar with applied behavior analysis (ABA), it is the scientific study of behaviors (both internal behaviors such as emotions and external behaviors such as our daily actions). Those who have studied in the field use a data and analytical approach to create positive change in a person or animal's life through individualized strategies catered to them.

Let’s review a quick recap of the difference between reinforcement and punishment from a behaviorally scientific perspective. See below:

Positive Reinforcement (adding something pleasant): A mother gives her son praise (reinforcement added) for doing homework (behavior)
Negative Reinforcement (taking away something aversive): Bob does the dishes (behavior) in order to stop his mother’s nagging (nagging is taken away)
Positive Punishment (adding an aversive stimuli): Making a child do an unpleasant task when they misbehave (positive punishment)
Negative Punishment (taking away something pleasant): A wife tells her husband that she is feeling frustrated with him, and the husband ignores her (attention taken away)
*Key Note: Negative punishment AND positive punishment both provide negative results and can increase an undesired behavior, and should always be used as a last resort

With reinforcement, a behavior or action is likely to increase because they are motivated by either something unpleasant that was removed, or something they desire is provided in response to the behavior. However, the consequences of punishment can result in…

• A harmful emotional response ( feelings of shame, fear, anxiety, guilt, self-punishment, or low self-esteem)

• potentially increase aggressive behavior (because it models aggression)

• Suppress a behavior (i.e. they may stop communicating to you because you don’t respond to them anyway or they don’t feel safe)

• It does not teach a replacement: It does not teach, replace, or model to them the appropriate alternative, so they are likely to repeat the behavior

• Temporary Boomerang effect: once the punishment is withdrawn, the behavior will come back again

Punishment doesn’t just come in the form of actions, but also in words. Verbal punishment can look like this..

• “If you don’t do X then I’m leaving you” (negative punishment)

• “You’re grounded because you didn’t study hard enough/get straight A’s” (negative punishment)

• “That’s not good enough” (positive punishment)

• “You’re not listening” (positive punishment)

• “Why can’t you get this right?” (positive punishment)

Does any of it sound familiar? Typically, we do better when we are offered reinforcement such as acknowledgement or praise for something we did “Wow nice job I can tell you’ve been working really hard”. However, punishment can make us feel less of a person, feel like we are not good enough (or never will be good enough), and frustrated– which can lead to suppression of emotions and unhealthy emotional responses. This is the cross-section of where we tend to encounter harmful or frustrating behaviors from others. In children, unhealthy responses can look like tantruming, grabbing, hitting, screaming, biting or simply refusing to listen. In adults, unhealthy responses can look like yelling, road rage, slamming doors, getting defensive, shutting down, blaming, or verbal name calling.

It’s important to think about if our own actions and responses offer reinforcement or punishment to those we interact with daily. The more we engage in punishment behaviors, the less likely we are going to gain access to what we want from a person, which is someone who reciprocates in a cooperative, loving and respectful way. The good news is every response is a skill, and new skills can be acquired, shaped and changed. 

Here are some ways we can influence what we want in a relationship, whether that is with a friend, family, stranger or partner. 

• Think of replacements for toxic responses.  Instead of nagging, learn how to share a need or boundary. Instead of throwing a dangerous item, is throwing is helpful, learn to throw soft pillows.

• Avoid attention or reinforcement for undesired behavior. This is especially big for children who learn at an early age to behave in ways to get their needs met. Instead of giving attention or reacting to the behavior, respond to the child’s underlying needs. A child is throwing a tantrum? An underlying need may simply to be comforted and held by mom (the item they are tantruming about will eventually fade if the parent knows how to meet their needs, believe me).

• Be consistent with your reinforcement and responses (and mean what you say). Consistency is linked to trust. So if you are say one thing but do another, or you say you will doing something but you only do it occasionally, it will be difficult for parent, child, colleague to believe what you say. This is where challenging responses come in.

• Model what you want. If you want your husband to emotionally support you, how well are you offering that yourself? If you want your child to stop responding a certain way, are you modeling that response in any way?
  
  Consider self-reflecting: How are you responding to yourself? Are you reinforcing or punishing yourself, when bad things happen? What about things that happen that are not in your control? How are you responding, and how is the world responding to you? What is that teaching you?
  
  If you feel you have healthy relationships, here is a challenge:
  How are your actions and responses reinforcing or shaping those around you? In other words– what behaviors are you reinforcing on social media, at work, in friend circles, children, etc? Are you reinforcing the right ones?
  For example, say person A posts a comment on an article Person B posts and person A writes “That’s stupid, they have no idea what they are talking about”. If person A gets a response (thats not a reprimand), or even a “like” to their comment, people just socially reinforced that behavior. Therefore, that person is going to think it is appropriate and okay to respond to just about anything that way.
  Another example: say your friend is stating “wow I don’t think that girl showers, she has a bad smell”. And you respond “oh yeah I see what you mean”, just to appease and go along with your friend. What you just did was reinforce a behavior for speaking badly of others and thinking lowly of others. Therefore, those types of statements will continue with others.
  
  One of my own personal goals that I made was that I was going to stop acknowledging and responding to negative comments pro-actively. If it’s a self-pity comment, a condescending one, a blaming one towards me– I’m going to do my best to provide a response that does not encourage or continue the conversation. However if they are showing vulnerability, they are communicating their needs, they are apologizing or acknowledging differences, I’m ALL in and I’m going to reinforce that to its fullest.
  
  This is why it’s important to reinforce appropriate behaviors for kids at a young age, they are our future generation!