Psychology help needed!

Bit random, but in my essay I'm discussing what motivated people to follow COVID-19 rules such as mask wearing, social distancing, etc.

In terms of operant conditioning, I wanted to know if: The news informed people the dangers of contracting COVID-19, this led to them to change their behaviour (e.g. wearing masks) so they wouldn't get ill.

Is this an example of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment or negative punishment? Hopefully this makes sense and I hope someone can explain it to me!

Reply 1

username6039903

5

Positive Reinforcement is rewarding behaviour to increase it, here it would be being rewarded for wearing a mask or getting a vaccine, such as getting a sweet after the vaccine etc.

Negative Reinforcement would be removing a negative stimuli to increase behaviour. That would be your example, wearing a mask so you don’t catch covid (something we known has consequences). Although I have to say if you’re using this as an example it’s not the simplest there are many other simpler examples like going to work to avoid being tight on bills.

Punishment would be having a negative consequence to not wearing a mask making u stop not wearing a mask. (I don’t think positive punishment exists).

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 2

beefreya

16

Original post by star_symbol

Bit random, but in my essay I'm discussing what motivated people to follow COVID-19 rules such as mask wearing, social distancing, etc.

In terms of operant conditioning, I wanted to know if: The news informed people the dangers of contracting COVID-19, this led to them to change their behaviour (e.g. wearing masks) so they wouldn't get ill.

Is this an example of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment or negative punishment? Hopefully this makes sense and I hope someone can explain it to me!

You could also talk about normative and informative social influence? People want to be liked by a group (normative - the need to be liked) so they want to fit in with them. You could also talk about minority influence, and how the people creating the rules used consistency, commitment and flexibility?

Reply 3

gogoiyoi598

12

Original post by star_symbol

Bit random, but in my essay I'm discussing what motivated people to follow COVID-19 rules such as mask wearing, social distancing, etc.

In terms of operant conditioning, I wanted to know if: The news informed people the dangers of contracting COVID-19, this led to them to change their behaviour (e.g. wearing masks) so they wouldn't get ill.

Is this an example of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment or negative punishment? Hopefully this makes sense and I hope someone can explain it to me!

I'd say negative reinforcement.
The definition of negative reinforcement is: Performing an action that stops something unpleasant from happening, increasing the likelihood that the action occurs.
The action would be wearing the mask, and the unpleasant thing would be COVID-19.

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 4

star_symbol

OP

14

Thank you everyone :smile:

Psychology help needed!

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