Negative reinforcement

A response to the Misunderstood Activity
created by Lynne Kennette (@LynneKennette)

Number of views: 291

In the learning chapter of psychology, students often erroneously use the term “negative reinforcement” to mean punishment. The reason for the error is that they interpret the term “negative” to mean there is a negative consequence, however, it actually means “remove/subtract”. To try to counter this prior knowledge (or rather, to activate the correct prior knowledge), I introduce this concept as a mathematical term (negative (-) or positive (+) means to add or remove).

I think the image helps. To ensure they’re clear on these concepts, I then show them a clip from the Big Bang Theory which *incorrectly* uses the term “negative reinforcement” to mean “positive punishment”. If they can identify (and correct) the error, then they’re likely to have correctly overcome this prior learning hinderance.