Rewards Are Complex
Rewarding a dog is very simple. Rewarding children is much more complex. For human beings, how a reward is given, what kind of reward is given, how often it is given, and what it is given for all matter. The goal of this blog is to provide some insight into how rewards work and how you can successfully use them with your child. More than one blog will be required to achieve this goal, but the following information will get you started on using rewards effectively.
What Rewards Do To Behavior
Rewards reinforce behavior. For this reason, we generally call rewards, reinforcers. The reinforcement of a behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will reoccur in the future in similar situations. Reinforcement occurs all the time; it is part of the natural behavioral environment. Sometimes your child acts in a way that surprises you, and you wonder what caused that behavior to occur. Among other things, reinforcement causes behavior to occur.
For a reward to reinforce a behavior, it must occur soon after the behavior occurs. If a reinforcer is given too long after the behavior occurs, then it won’t have the effect of reinforcement on the behavior. This is an issue for parents, because parents are busy people. We sometimes reinforce our children, but the reinforcer occurs too late to have a reinforcing effect. Because we often like reinforcers, we tend to think that something we like will be reinforcing to us. Sometimes that is true but not always. Something is a reinforcer for us if it increases the chances that a behavior it follows will tend to occur in similar situations. That we like the reinforcer has nothing to do with its ability to reinforce us.
When you give someone a reward, you are reinforcing something. That something is the response that occurred just before the reward was given. The behavior that actually occurred just before the reward was given may not always be the behavior that you want to reinforce. You do not want to increase the occurrence of such behavior. Thus, be aware of what you are actually reinforcing.
What Reinforcement Does To Behavior
The most important effect that reinforcement has on behavior is strengthening it. When a behavior has been strengthened by reinforcement it has had its chances of occurring in a similar situation increased. Thus, if you reinforce your child for making her bed in the morning before eating breakfast, then you are increasing the chances that your child will make her bed again in the morning before eating breakfast. Reinforcement always increases behavior. In another blog we will talk about decreasing behavior. Those are the two major operations on behavior, increasing it or decreasing it.
Examples of Reinforcement in the Natural Environment
The natural environment is your life. In this section we will find where some of the reinforcers are hanging out.
Having Coffee Each Morning. If you are a coffee drinker, you likely have a cup of coffee each morning upon arising. Where is the reinforcer in this sequence of events. 1) You walk into the kitchen; 2) you have programmed the coffee pot the night before to make a pot of coffee at this time of day; 3) you get yourself a coffee cup; 3) you pour yourself a cup of coffee; 4) you sit down in your chair and begin drinking your coffee. In which step does the reinforcer occur? The reinforcer generally occurs in the culmination of a sequence of actions. Thus, the act of drinking your coffee is the reinforcer. What behavior did the reinforcer, you drinking coffee, reinforce or strengthen? It strengthened the actions of steps 1-3. You engage in this sequence every morning, but you have probably never thought that you have reinforced a sequence of actions. If you reflect on your morning routine, you will probably notice that you take your first sip of coffee pretty soon after it is made.
Starting Your Car. You 1) get into your car; 2) put the car key into the ignition switch; 3) turn the key to the right; 4) hold the ignition on until the car starts. In which step does the reinforcer occur? In step 4, the car starting is the reinforcer. It reinforces the actions in steps 1-3. If the car didn’t start, you would soon quite putting the key into the ignition switch and turning it. Notice, the car has to start pretty soon after putting the key into the ignition switch and turning it. Otherwise, you will soon stop putting the key into the ignition switch and turning it.
In these two examples, the reinforcer produced functional effects on the environment. It is a natural part of the environment. Most products are designed to enhance the behavior needed to use them.
Cleaning the House. You, 1) ask your child to clean his room; 2) he cleans it; 3) you thank your child for cleaning his room; 4) your child plays a computer game. In which step does the reinforcer occur? In this behavior sequence, steps 3 and 4 contain events that could act like a reinforcers of steps 1 and 2, Because your child playing a computer game follows so closely upon cleaning his room, it may act like a reinforcer. Events following a response can produce reinforcing effects upon behavior. What if your child had just messed around instead of cleaning his room and then played a computer game. This sequence could have the effect of reinforcing
playing around instead of cleaning the room. It could have increased the strength of playing around when he should be cleaning his room. Your kind words for cleaning the room in step 3 also likely reinforced the actions in steps 1 and 2.
Reinforcers Are Everywhere
Every behavioral response you execute everyday has a reinforcer behind it. That is why you continue to do them every day. Thus, reinforcers are everywhere and are a natural part of our lives. A reinforcer is much more than kind words spoken or money paid for a job done. Reinforcement is part of the behavior process that is occurring almost every instant wherever people are interacting with their environment. Reinforcers are part of our connection to the natural environment. A major way the environment connects to our behavior is by reinforcing it. In addition to affecting our behavior, reinforcements affect the environment. An environment that gives us more positive reinforcers than negative ones produces a positive environment for us. If most of the reinforcers that the environment produces for us are negative, then our response to it will be negative. We would say, “This environment isn’t working for me.” Reinforcers are always occurring but not systematically. We can systematically use reinforcers to produce specific effects in our lives. In other videos, we will discuss how to use reinforcers to produce the effects in your life that you want.