A friend is taking a class in childhood education. “Back in the old days,” she says, “teachers used physical punishment, but of course that’s not allowed any more. Now, a good teacher should only use reinforcement. When children behave, teachers should provide positive reinforcement, like praise. When children misbehave, teachers should provide negative reinforcement, like scolding or withholding privileges.” What is your friend misunderstanding about reinforcement? Can you give better examples of how negative reinforcement could be productively applied in an elementary school classroom?

A friend of your family is trying to train her daughter to make her bed every morning. You suggest she tries positive reinforcement. A month later, the woman reports back to you. “It is not working very well,” she says. “Every time she makes her bed, I put a gold star on the calendar, and at the end of the week, if there are seven gold stars, I give Vicky a reward—a piece of licorice. But so far, she’s only earned the licorice twice.” How could you explain why the desired behaviour—bed-making—might not increase as a result of this reinforcement procedure?

While studying for the exam, you ask your study partner to provide a definition of classical conditioning. “In classical conditioning,” she says, “there’s a stimulus—the CS—that predicts an upcoming event, the US. Usually, it is something bad, like an electric shock, nausea, or a frightening loud noise. The learner makes a response, the CR, in order to prevent the US. Sometimes, the US is good, like food for Pavlov’s dogs, and then the learner makes the response in order to earn the US.” What is wrong with this definition?

One of your classmates announces that he liked the last chapter (on memory) better than the current chapter on learning. “I want to be a psychiatrist,” he says, “so I mostly care about human learning. Conditioning might be a really powerful way to train animals to push levers or perform tricks, but it really doesn’t have much relevance to how humans learn things.” How similar is learning in humans and other animals? What real-world examples can you provide to show that conditioning does occur in humans?