ANSWER THIS (200 WORDS)

Develop a set of guidelines which might be used to increase the likelihood that employees are presenting a positive impression in the workplace.

REPLY TO/MAKE YOUR OWN COMMENT: (200 WORDS)

Both negative reinforcement and punishment are reinforcement behavior contingencies where a desired, positive behavior is being fostered. The difference between the two lies in whether a negative consequence is being added to, or subtracted from, the behavioral situation. Negative reinforcement removes a previously encountered consequence. The text uses the example of working harder and smarter removing the frown from the managers face so therefore in order to ensure that the manager doesnt have the frown on their face, the employee works both harder and smarter (p. 109). The negative consequence of the managers frown is removed. Punishment essentially adds a negative consequence to address undesirable behavior (p. 110). A good example of punishment would be getting the least desired work task as a result of missing a mandatory meeting where the negative consequence in this case, the undesirable work assignment, has been added.

A good example of negative reinforcement used in the workplace that comes to mind is the utilization of a documented monitoring plan to help a suspected slacking employee get back on track to being more productive. The ultimate goal for the employee would be to get rid of the monitoring plan (negative consequence) so that his or her work could resume normally as it had been before the increased monitoring. The manager gets the desired behavior in return. Punishment comes in to play when the employee doesnt respond as expected to the additional monitoring or oversight and continues with the same behavior. Managers may respond by adding the negative consequence of time off without pay in response to the unsuccessful attempt at using negative reinforcement.

References

Hitt, Miller & Colella (2015), Organizational Behavior 4th edition, John Wiley & Sons Inc.

REPLY TO/MAKE YOUR OWN COMMENT (200 WORDS)

Reinforcement is used to help increase the probability that a specific behavior will occur in the future by delivering a stimulus immediately after a response/behavior is exhibited.

Negative reinforcement occurs when a certain stimulus (usually an aversive stimulus) is removed after a particular behavior is exhibited. The likelihood of the particular behavior occurring again in the future is increased because of removing/avoiding the negative consequence.

Negative reinforcement should not be thought of as a punishment procedure. With negative reinforcement, you are increasing a behavior, whereas with punishment, you are decreasing a behavior.

The following are some examples of negative reinforcement:

• Bob does the dishes (behavior) in order to avoid his boss nagging (negative stimulus).
• Natalie can get up from the cash register (negative stimulus) when she services all customers in line(behavior).

When thinking about reinforcement, always remember that the end result is to try to increase the behavior, whereas punishment procedures are used to decrease behavior

Punishment

• When people hear that punishment procedures are being used, they typically think of an aversive or harmful consequence. This is not always the case as you can see below.
• Punishment is a process by which a consequence immediately follows a behavior which decreases the future frequency of that behavior. Like reinforcement, a stimulus can be added (positive punishment) or removed (negative punishment).
• There are two types of punishment: positive and negative, and it can be difficult to tell the difference between the two.

http://bcotb.com/the-difference-between-positivenegative-reinforcement-and-positivenegative-punishment/