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Trust me, if you had a question about something and someone treated you very disrespectfully and I saw it, I would punish them too. Besides, its the staff's job to carry out legal negative reinforcement. Laws, police, judicial systems, etc., are there for the same reason. Certain people are entrusted with the responsibility of discouraging bad behavior. You got in trouble for the same reason a civilian would get in trouble if they tried to help police in a high speed car chase, for instance. Yes, the person being chased may have done something wrong, but their punishment is the responsibility of those entrusted with the power to give punishment.

This site doesn't look on it negatively, as its one of the primary functions of the staff. But its not a CIVILIAN duty for good reason.

Which is exactly what I was doing with you, because your behavior was unsavory. There were much more peaceful alternatives to what you did.

I get the feeling this is not a discussion at all, but an attack on the way this site is moderated. If this isn't the case, could you be more specific about the negative reinforcement that is looked down upon?

For instance, parents hitting their children, husbands hitting their wives, and corporal punisment (caning, amputation of hands/feet) were once common practices and are now looked down upon because they are seen not as negative reinforcement, but inhumane treatment of other people. These practices have all given way to less corporal and more humanist approaches, such as induction in children, marrige counseling, and simple gang rape by other prison inmates (joking).

Personally I think that while negative reinforcement is often a good idea, positive reinforcement should be tried first. In general, it works better than negative reinforcement, because it shows the thing you're trying to train (dog, kid, computer program, whatever) what the right thing to do is, rather than merely what the right thing to do is not (there are lots more wrong things than right things). Negative reinforcement should usually be used if the thing you're training technically is knowingly doing something wrong, otherwise positive reinforcement is better.

A negative simple reinforcements such as "You're an idiot, you're stupid" are just insulting and won't do anything good. Simple comments don't do good in general. You should atleast acknowledge where you suck at. "You suck at catching." Atleast it won't degrade the target person's self-esteem in all parts.

Give positive reinforcement when people are children with some negitive, and when people get older you should most of the time give negetive reinforcement the world is a harsh place.

Negetive reinforcement is like punishment, and Positive reinforcement is like working the problem out the talking way or telling way right?

No. Positive reinforcements are things like... "You're good. Wow. etc.."

Maybe I missed something, but since when are members of an internet forum meant to build your self esteem?

I think we're old enough where negative/positive reinforcement won't really change you're personality that much anymore...

Negative reinforcements works if the target has something of value that is lost. Otherwise, they probably won't care. ... Wait ... Yeah, that's it.
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If someone outside of the instruction views the punishment, yet does not understand the reason for the punishment, then it appears bad. Simply put, you don't know me, step off!

Heres the problem with positive reinforcement.

Lets take a dog for example.
Every time the dog does a trick give him a treat. If you eventually stop giving him treats the dog will stop performing the trick. Positive reinforcement works as long as the reinforcement stays consistent. You see these even with humans too. For example, people work at a job to get payed. Getting payed is a positive reinforcement. What if the boss tells you that you will no longer get paid. The positive reinforcement would be gone and well... if you half a brain you would be really pist and probably quit.

Negative reinforcement must also be consistent. However heres where being negative takes over being positive. You will do what your told because of fear, and you wont disobey. If you don't disobey theres no negative reinforcement being taken place and thus the negative reinforcement ends, well thats the idea at least. As long as the fear is there the Negative Reinforcement can stop, but once the fear leaves..the negative reinforcement must continue. I mean imagine if you went to work because if you didn't you would be wipped for hours. As long as you are scared of being wiped, you will go to that job even if they don't pay you. The idea is to keep this fear in you forever so you never disobey and therefor making it easier[than positive reinforcement] for the Reinforcer to get the result from the subject he desires.



Is Negative reinforcement good? bad? I am not going to get into an argument about that. I would agree that it can have life lasting negative effects on the subject. I would agree that Negative Reinforcement gives you a better end result from the person applying the negative reinforcements perspective.

Uh, not really. With dogs at least, it is quite possible to keep them doing the trick long after you've stopped giving them rewards. A much better idea is to slowly edge off giving the dog treats, so you give them less and less and less, from 100% of the time finally down to 0% of the time. That makes it easier to keep the dog expecting treats when in fact it hasn't been getting any and won't get any.

However, kids are smarter than dogs, and your statement applies better to them because they will notice when they're no longer being rewarded, know why and then stop doing whatever it is.

Dogs might eventually, too. You need a combination of positive and negative - Do good or else, do good and here's a doggy treat. And do okay, and you get nothing.

The reason that dogs still do the tricks is that you tie the positive stimulus of the treat with the neutral stimulus of the "good dog" or pat on the head, and make the pat on the head a positive stimulus. As long as you say "good dog" to them they will (probably) still do the trick.

I'm not too sure about this, if I remember correctly studies have shown that you don't have to go on rewarding a dog at all in order to keep it doing stuff, so long as you've conditioned it to the positive feedback enough.

I believe however that if you reward a dog for to long it can be a problem. A girl in my psych class said that they never give her dogs rewards for doing tricks. Simply because they would stop doing them after they realized the reward stopped. Therefor they use other methods to teach the dog to do the trick.