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Reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST) proposes three brain-behavioral systems that underlie individual differences in sensitivity to reward, punishment, and motivation. While not originally defined as a theory of personality , the RST has been used to study and predict anxiety , impulsivity , and extraversion . [ 1 ]
In turn, the strict sense of "reinforcement" refers only to reward-based conditioning; the introduction of unpleasant factors and the removal or withholding of pleasant factors are instead referred to as "punishment", which when used in its strict sense thus stands in contradistinction to "reinforcement".
This theory was originally proposed in order to explain discriminated avoidance learning, in which an organism learns to avoid an aversive stimulus by escaping from a signal for that stimulus. Two processes are involved: classical conditioning of the signal followed by operant conditioning of the escape response: a) Classical conditioning of fear.
The reward system (the mesocorticolimbic circuit) is a group of neural structures responsible for incentive salience (i.e., "wanting"; desire or craving for a reward and motivation), associative learning (primarily positive reinforcement and classical conditioning), and positively-valenced emotions, particularly ones involving pleasure as a core component (e.g., joy, euphoria and ecstasy).
From an early age, parents nurture their children's behavior by using reward and praise following an achievement (crawling or taking a first step) which reinforces such behavior. When a child misbehaves, punishment in the form of verbal discouragement or the removal of privileges are used to discourage them from repeating their actions.
Just as "reward" was commonly used to alter behavior long before "reinforcement" was studied experimentally, the Premack principle has long been informally understood and used in a wide variety of circumstances. An example is a mother who says, "You have to finish your vegetables (low frequency) before you can eat any ice cream (high frequency)."
Specifically, Gray's theory concentrated on understanding how reward or punishment related to anxiety and impulsivity measures. His research and further studies have found that reward and punishment are under the control of separate systems and as a result people can have different sensitivities to such rewarding or punishing stimuli. [14]
Punishment has been used in a lot of different applications. It has been used in applied behavioral analysis, specifically in situations to try and punish dangerous behaviors like head banging. Punishment has also been used to psychologically manipulate individuals to gain control over victims.