BACKGROUNDFrom the discussion of positive and negative reinforcement, you learned that a behavior is strengthened by both types of reinforcement. In negative reinforcement a behavior is strengthened, whereas in punishment a behavior is weakened. For example, a child plays with an attractive box of matches and gets burned when one of the matches is lit. In the future, the child is less likely to play with matches.

Like reinforcement, psychologists distinguish positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment involves the addition of an aversive stimulus; negative punishment involves the removal of a pleasurable stimulus to decrease an undesired behavior.

Having read the research on punishment passed out in class, now read the scenario below and complete the assignment.

SCENARIO

Jack and Jill, brother and sister, are students at Saint Ignatius. Jill is a senior and Jack is a sophomore, and both are model students. Neither has ever gotten detention and both are consistently on the Principal’s Honor Roll. Jill is the power forward on the varsity girl’s basketball team, while Jack is one of the top three runners on the Boy’s Cross-Country team.

One day, a detective from the San Francisco Police Department’s fraud division comes to SI with a woman in her early 20s. The detective asks Mr Gotch and Ms Levine to summon Jack and Jill to his office for the young woman to identify. After positively identifying the siblings, the young woman leaves campus and the detective explains to Gotch and Levine what appears to have happened.

While the girls varsity basketball team played against Sacred Heart-Cathedral on Drucker Court, Jack stole several backpacks and duffel bags belonging to the Cathedral girls. After the game, he and Jill went to Stonestown. Jill stayed in the car and using a cell phone called into stores in the Mall saying she was Jack’s mother, physically describing him, and asking the store to allow him to use “her” credit card to buy new athletic shoes. Jack bought several new shoes for himself and his sister at three different stores in the Mall.

The woman that the detective brought was the clerk at Nordstrom that had received the call from Jill and then had helped Jack with his purchases. Nordstrom and one other store are filing charges against the siblings.

ASSIGNMENT

If your last name begins with the letters A thru M, you are to write from the perspective of Saint Ignatius. If your last name begins with the letters N thru Z, you are to write from the perspective of Jack and Jill’s parents.

What will “your” response to Jack and Jill be? Will you punish them, and if so, how?

In your response, make specific reference to the principles of effective punishment and the research that you have read.