What is the difference between Reinforcement and Punishment?

Reinforcement is something that can be used in order to encourage change in a person’s behavior. For example, those who are being taught certain skills would need to undergo something so that the behavior can be repeated all over and over again.

Reinforcement will also have the ability to increase the behavior of a person. Punishment is meant to make a person realize that what he did was wrong. This means that there are negative consequences that are tied with the actions that the person has done.

Those who are in prison are undergoing punishment because of the things that they have done. If they would be given a chance to get out, there is a lesser chance that they will do it again.

When it comes to behavior, there are good and bad results of it, depending on the type of behavior that a person is portraying. Reinforcement and punishment are two of those results. Out of the two, reinforcement is the only one that comes from some doing good.

It would be called positive reinforcement, such as giving a student a gold star for being good all day at school. There are also negative reinforcements, such as a student having to sit in silent lunch for not behaving well.

Reinforcements do not do much to change negative behavior, but punishment will. Punishment is a consequence that is handed out for bad behavior. For example, if a person commits a crime, their likely punishment is jail time.