Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionV. Learning Theories 15. Skinner: Behavioral
Analysis(^460) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
(crying, withdrawal, attack) that is incompatible with the behavior of teasing a
younger sibling. In the future, when the boy thinks about mistreating his younger sis-
ter, that thought may elicit a classical conditioned response, such as fear, anxiety,
guilt, or shame. This negative emotion then serves to prevent the undesirable behav-
ior from recurring. Lamentably, it offers no positive instruction to the child.
A third outcome of punishment is the spread of its effects.Any stimulus asso-
ciated with the punishment may be suppressed or avoided. In our example, the boy
may simply learn to avoid his younger sister, stay away from his parents, or develop
negative feelings toward the paddle or the place where the paddling occurred. As a
result, the boy’s behavior toward his family becomes maladaptive. Yet this inappro-
priate behavior serves the purpose of preventing future punishment. Skinner recog-
nized the classical Freudian defense mechanismsas effective means of avoiding pain
and its attendant anxiety. The punished person may fantasize, project feelings onto
others, rationalize aggressive behaviors, or displace them toward other people or
animals.
Punishment and Reinforcement Compared Punishment has several characteris-
tics in common with reinforcement. Just as there are two kinds of reinforcements
(positive and negative), there are two types of punishment. The first requires the
presentation of an aversive stimulus; the second involves the removal of a positive
reinforcer. An example of the former is pain encountered from falling as the result
of walking too fast on an icy sidewalk. An example of the latter is a heavy fine levied
against a motorist for driving too fast. This first example (falling) results from a nat-
ural condition; the second (being fined) follows from human intervention. These two
types of punishment reveal a second characteristic common to punishment and rein-
forcement: Both can derive either from natural consequences or from human impo-
sition. Finally, both punishment and reinforcement are means of controlling behav-
ior, whether the control is by design or by accident. Skinner obviously favored
planned control, and his book Walden Two(Skinner, 1948) presented many of his
ideas on the control of human behavior.
Conditioned and Generalized Reinforcers
Food is a reinforcement for humans and animals because it removes a condition of
deprivation. But how can money, which cannot directly remove a condition of de-
privation, be reinforcing? The answer is that money is a conditioned reinforcer.
Conditioned reinforcers (sometimes called secondary reinforcers) are those environ-
mental stimuli that are not by nature satisfying but become so because they are as-
sociated with such unlearned or primary reinforcersas food, water, sex, or physical
comfort. Money is a conditioned reinforcer because it can be exchanged for a great
variety of primary reinforcers. In addition, it is a generalized reinforcerbecause it
is associated with more than one primary reinforcer.
Skinner (1953) recognized five important generalized reinforcers that sustain
much of human behavior: attention, approval, affection, submission of others, and
tokens (money). Each can be used as reinforcers in a variety of situations. Attention,
for example, is a conditioned generalized reinforcer because it is associated with
such primary reinforcers as food and physical contact. When children are being fed
454 Part V Learning Theories