You wash the dishes right away because your roommates complained about it, and now you are likely to wash the dishes to avoid the complaints. This is an example of negative reinforcement in action.
Negative reinforcement involves strengthening behavior by avoiding the consequences.
<h2>Further Explanation</h2>
Your action is a perfect example of negative reinforcement because you want to stop the consequence which is the complaints by friends.
In other words, what you are trying is to perform that action to completely avoid the negative consequences.
Negative reinforcement can be a perfect approach to encourage the desired behavior. It is even more effective when a negative consequence is followed when unwanted behavior is performed.
In other words, the presence of reinforcers to reinforce a negative consequence immediately undesired behavior is performed will go a long way in changing an undesired behavior.
If reinforcers are not always present to impose a negative consequence when an undesired behavior is performed, it will do just a little to correct such behavior, that is, the negative consequence would have little or no effect on the undesired behavior.
Therefore, if you wash the dishes to avoid complaints from your friends, it is a perfect example of negative reinforcement.
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KEYWORDS:
- negative reinforcement
- washing dishes
- positive reinforcement
- roommates
- complaints