Question

You are a manager in a supermarket. One evening, you hear raised voices and see Chuck shouting at a customer, "I’m not going to put the bread in a separate bag! I’m going to put it in the top of this bag so it doesn’t get squashed. That’s good enough!" Because yelling at customers is not allowed, you intervene and take care of the customer, and you ask Chuck to meet you in the office. There you use____________suspending Chuck without pay for the rest of his shift, to try to prevent this behavior from happening again.

Answer 1

Answer:

punishment

Explanation:

Basically, the manager is trying to change the behavior of his employee, Chuck. In management and organizational psychology, that is often referred to as the reinforcement theory of motivation.

In this example, the manager uses remuneration punishment in order to alter Chuck's noted behavior pattern.

NOTE - This is not to be confused with negative reinforcement, which is also related to the reinforcement theory. Although the term negative may imply some similarities with punishment, negative reinforcement is a different concept. While punishment is directly weakening the unwanted behavior, negative reinforcement is strengthening a desired behavior, by means of removing an unwanted consequence for the employee when he follows the wanted behavior pattern.

For example, a form of negative reinforcement would be if Chuck knew upfront that his pay would be reduced if he yelled at his customers and he avoided yelling in the first place because of that.