LEARNING IN THE RAT {RATTUS NORVEGICUS) UNDER POSITIVE VS. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT WITH INCENTIVE CONDITIONS CONTROLLED

A popular stereotype holds that psychologists are opposed to the use of punish-ment as a device for teaching organisms. As with all stereotypes, this is an over-simplification, but there is some truth to it. Some very definitive experiments (Estes, 1944) have shown that punishment by itself does not permanently weaken the tendency to perform a response. But there are other ways of using noxious stimulation in teaching, and neither psychologists nor the public are entirely con-vinced that these may not be efficient methods of behavioral control (leaving out ethical considerations, of course). One way of using punishment is to administer it if a response is not performed. A warning stimulus is presented and then, if the appropriate response is not per-formed, a noxious stimulus is given. In the psychologist's vernacular this is called "avoidance learning, " i.e., the subject learns to avoid punishment by per-forming a particular response under specified stimulus conditions. Technically, this is called learning with negative reinforcement: a response is strengthened (rein-forced) by the removal or the prevention of a noxious stimulus. Both in th