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Reinforcements and punishments in education: what are they and how are they used?

Reinforcements and punishments in education: what are they and how are they used?

March 19, 2024

All the things we do, we do them because they worked for us before. That is to say, if I am a person who shouts to his fellow men, it is because at some point I learned that I can obtain some benefit by shouting. On the contrary, if I am a passive person, tending to avoid conflict, it will be because at some point I will have learned to shout It does not provide me with benefits, or else it gives me greater damages .

However, it may be that the behaviors that always provided me with benefits, stop doing so by changing the context. For example, in my high school class it might work for me to treat my classmates aggressively because they did my homework, but maybe I'll meet other people when they get to college, less vulnerable to my aggressiveness (or more). aggressive). In that case, I will have a serious problem, because I will have run out of behavioral resources to develop this aspect of my life.


For all this, for an educator it is of vital importance pay close attention to what is and what is not reinforcing , because early behaviors will evolve over time and, without adequate guidance in growth (which will not always exist), we can meet adults who respond "as children" to their social situations.

  • Related article: "Educational psychology: definition, concepts and theories"

Punishments and reinforcements to educate

First of all, it is necessary to clarify the importance of contingencies between behaviors and consequences , especially at very early ages, in which basic mental processes such as thought, memory or language are in the early stages of their development and, therefore, will not be as effective as an educational tool.


The organisms establish behavioral guidelines through the consequences that follow them. If the result of a behavior facilitates that such behavior is repeated in the future, it will be called reinforcement and, if on the contrary, it diminishes its probability of appearance, we will call this consequence: punishment.

From this we deduce that, the same consequence, in different people, may or may not be reinforcement or punishment. For example, withdrawing television time can be a punishment for one child, but not for another. Sending a child to their room can be a reinforcement if what is in the room pleases the child (toys, video consoles ...), and a congratulatory or approving smile can be enough (or maybe not) reinforcer.

  • Maybe you're interested: "What is positive or negative reinforcement in Psychology?"

The need for coherence between school and society

We must know our audience very well, and exercise a good contingency between the behaviors deployed and the consequences that we administer. And in that sense, we must be very careful with what behavior we want to establish. Congratulation is a social reinforcer for most children and when, for example, we instinctively say "Very good!" to a child for whatever he does, we may fail to reinforce both the child's activity and the attention call.



This can lead to an association between self-esteem and social reinforcement, which can lead to seeking that self-esteem in the approval of our physical appearance, economic level, likes on Instagram and other banalities that society tends to reinforce (through fiction, advertising, etc.).

Another example is given in the case of "snitches". In a society that increasingly encourages social responsibility , and encourages us to get involved in cases of gender violence (by calling the police when we hear shouting in the next house) or fraud (both by a company and a private individual), the culture of the class remains , in many occasions, to sanction the informer when he warns us that Fulanito has copied or Menganita has hit Zutanita.


The importance of encouraging appropriate behavior

Without entering into what social model is the most appropriate, attention is drawn to the incoherence between a society that, through school, educates in a value (silence) that it does not consider desirable in the society to which its infants, and that will try to modify through campaigns, etc.

Reinforcements and punishments operate continuously in the educational context , and it is of vital importance to detect which behaviors we are reinforcing and which are not, as well as what it means to reinforce these behaviors towards the society to which these citizens in formation are going to incorporate, because we want or not, childhood and adulthood are not they are more than arbitrary conventions, and from birth to death, we are just developing people.


Operant conditioning: Positive-and-negative reinforcement and punishment | MCAT | Khan Academy (March 2024).


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