Reinforcement: A powerful tool for every Leader.

The term reinforce means to strengthen.

Reinforcement is one of the dominant tools for coaches to apply.

All the coaches can apply this tool to handle the mindset change or behavior changes to team members. 

How do we implement this?

Anything stimulus which strengthens or increases the probability of a definitive response.

Reinforcement is anything that, when it adheres to a behavior, tends to strengthen (or weaken) that behavior.

For this to use, we have to observe carefully which behavior we can transform by raising something and dropping something. You may be incorrect also as we as an individuals, we are not consistent to demonstrate our same behavior.

Look for a behavior pattern. If you choose to identify a behavior that you are looking for, stimulate so that a person repeats the behavior so that you can be certain that behavior you prefer to alter.

My son always chooses to play a video game on any device. He is extremely addictive and not ready to get rid of this addiction. When he got the device, he looks for the opportunity to grab the device to play the game. Once nobody is around, he will repeat this behavior further. If you ask if he has played, he will say no, “I do not want to play!”. But in his mind, he invariably chooses to play. We choose to alter this behavior. If we let him alone he will constantly play, so we never let him alone, One of the other people always be with him. Loneliness is the stimulus for him, which we choose to cut, to weaken this behavior. He is so addictive once he identifies the stimuli he exhibits the behavior.

Most of the time reward him when he does not play a video game because. With this reinforcement, we choose to increase the probability that the same response will be repeated.

There are two types of reinforcement, known as positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement; positive is whereby a reward is offered on the expression of the wanted behavior and negative is taking away an undesirable element in the person-environment whenever the desired behavior is achieved.

We implemented both to adjust my son’s behavior. Positive reinforcement weakens a response by presenting something unpleasant after the response, whereas negative reinforcement weakens a response by reducing or removing something pleasant. When my kid plays the video game after saying not to play, then we lock the devices from him for a couple of days. This is negative reinforcement. 

Punishment refers to adding something aversive in order to decrease a behavior. Sometimes we have to scold my kid when he plays for beyond stipulated time or play by stealing. Punishment is different from negative reinforcement

Reinforcement occurs only if there is an observable strengthening in behavior. Punishment, when applied immediately adhering to the negative behavior, can be effective but results in extinction when it is not applied regularly. Punishment can again invoke other negative responses such as anger and resentment. Which happens most of the time with my kid!

Timing is central in the utilization of reinforcement, and poorly timed rewards or punishments can inadvertently strengthen unwanted behavior patterns. A schedule of reinforcement is essentially a rule specifying which examples of behavior will be reinforced. 

In continuous reinforcement, the desired behavior is reinforced every particular time it occurs. This schedule is best used during the initial stages of learning to construct a solid association between the behavior and response.

Once the response if firmly built, a continuous reinforcement schedule is normally switched to a partial reinforcement schedule.

There are four schedules of partial reinforcement:

Fixed Ratio In a fixed ratio schedule, positive reinforcement is applied on every nth iteration of the desired behavior.

Variable Ratio In a variable ratio schedule, positive reinforcement can be applied in an unpredictable ratio, given an average n.

Fixed Interval Rewards are time-based in a fixed interval schedule. A reward is given after a consistently set period that the person worked or produced the target behavior.

Variable Interval: A variable interval schedule occurs when you provide reinforcement at irregular periods, and the person has no idea about the schedule.

In Applied Behavior Analysis, the Premack principle is frequently known as “grandma’s rule,” which describes that making the opportunity to engage in high-frequency behavior contingent upon the occurrence of low-frequency behavior will function as a reinforce for the low-frequency behavior.

For example, to encourage a child who prefers chocolate candy to eat vegetables (low-frequency behavior), the behaviorist would want to make access to eating chocolate candy (high-frequency behavior) contingent upon consuming the vegetables (low-frequency behavior). In this example, the statement would be, “first eat all of your vegetables; then you can have one chocolate candy.”Leaders can apply the Premack principle organizationally.