Brittney Means

Behavioral Analysis

Professor Eric Denette

November 17, 2016

The Use of Punishment

The use of punishment in ABA has been at the center of controversy for a long time.

Many people have often thought of punishment as immoral, saying that it contains aversive

consequences at the means of changing behavior. People also believe that punishment has

negative side effects, such as it producing less than desirable emotional reactions, reactions that

are spontaneous like a burst of anger or a sudden fear coming over someone. It's as if people are

associating punishment with a psychotic break. I happen to agree with the use of punishment in

Applied Behavioral Analysis because when it is used appropriately it produces real results.

Punishment is meant to decrease the frequency of a behavior it is meant to change/weaken a

behavior not the person themselves. There are many different types of punishment such as time

out, reprimand, response cost etc. and each of these forms of punishment serve the same goal but

have different areas they focus on to improve socially acceptable behavior. Not all forms/kinds

of punishment are aversive or even require physical contact.

Punishment can also be the only option. For example in the video we watched in class

those were people who maybe other procedures did not work for. They were a danger to

themselves and possibly to the people around them and in that case a response cost punishment

procedure could have been of good use. A response cost punishment procedure is a safe form of

punishment, it makes giving up a reinforcer contingent on the target behavior so whenever the
target behavior was displayed they would have to remove their reinforcer for good behavior, in

other words they would have to give up a reinforcer for undesirable behavior causing them to

earn reinforcers when behaving in a socially acceptable way. Nothing aversive, nothing

psychical this form of punishment is all about earning reinforcement based on good behavior,

people will act responsibly to gain access to participate in things that they find comforting, or

that they just enjoy.

In an article I came across spoke about punishment within the school system, specifically

focusing on physical education. This article focused on EAP, exercise as punishment, and how

that may negatively affect the classroom environment as well as perception towards physical

educators, so even environmental matters when implementing a procedure in ABA . Students

were given a survey and in this survey they were asked about EAP and weather they were

positively affected by EAP or negatively affected by it, 73% or makes and 83% or females said

EAP affected the classroom environment. This students were introduced to physical education as

a form of punishment, when they acted up in class they were set to do physical activities in a

gym with dim lighting, and a cold, hard looking instructor, in front of an entire room full of

people enforcing physical education in a negative light without even understanding that the

environment in which these students indulge in physical activity was a factor when deciding

whether or not it felt like a punishment to them. Just because you are using a punishment

procedure does not mean it has to feel like a punishment. This caused students to be fearful and

traumatized which can then cause an affect their attitude toward exercise throughout a person’s

life. A fearful learning environment is an uncomfortable one, and the misuse of punishment in

this article is what people do not agree with. I want to illustrate that this is one of many types of

punishment and unlike the others this one is physical.

 In an article I can across a study was done to illustrate of young adults exhibited greater

altruism than adults. In other words that wanted to see if young adults had more concern for the

welfare of other people, strangers that they had no relation to or have never seen and their

willingness to punish a person when the act poorly towards that stranger. A study was done with

one hundred and twenty two young adults and adults. In groups of three they placed two young

adults (who most likely knew each other from the same school) with one adult (the stranger).

One young adult who was the allocator who could share money units with the stranger (the

adult). The other participant who knew the allocator could punish the allocator for the stranger.

Studies showed that on average the participant punished more when the allocated violated social

norms by not distributing money units evenly between him/herself and the stranger. This being

because young adults have abstract thoughts between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. They

have thoughts of idealism, imagining an ideal world without injustice and unfairness so the

misuse of human norms causes punishment. The allocator a were punished by reprimand,

reprimand being described as expressing disapproval verbally. It is important that people

understand reprimand as a type of punishment is not equivalent or associated with verbal abuse.

Punishment sound scary and aversive just by the name, but the use of them do not require

physical or psychological harm to the those who receive it. Punishment is a part of learning,

every behavior has consequences punishment is a tool used to avoid those negative or void

consequences. There is positive punishment which adds a stimulus still to decrease a behavior,

and with that there is negative punishment were something such as a reinforcer is removed to

decrease behavior. Punishment is meant to decrease or eliminate behavior so that that person can

be taught a more appropriate behavior. Not to scare people into acting straight.
 Cited

Barney, David, Francis T. Pleban, Matt Fullmer, Rachel Griffiths, Kelsey

Higginson, and Dez Whaley. "Appropriate or Inappropriate Practice: Exercise as

Punishment in Physical Education." Libproxy.mcla.edu. N.p., 2016. Web.

Hao, Jian, Yue Yang, and Zhiwen Wang. "Face-to-Face Sharing with Strangers and

Altruistic Punishment of Acquaintances for Strangers: Young Adolescents Exhibit

Greater Altruism than Adults." Frontiers in Psychology. Frontiers Media S.A., 2016.

Web. 17 Nov. 2016