Behavioral school part 5: Positive reinforcement
Along with being precise or being good at pinpointing is positive reinforcement the most important cornerstone when working with behavior change.
And doesn't that sound nice? Much nicer than negative reinforcement! But here it's easy to get lost in the concepts. Is a big pay raise a positive reinforcement? It's certainly nice, but it only qualifies as a positive reinforcer if it provides a lasting behavioral change in the direction we wanted to achieve. Not as obvious, right?
There are four different types of consequences, two that cause a behavior to be repeated or to increase and two that cause a behavior to decrease or to cease.
All four types of consequences can be used to influence behavior, but what study after study shows is that positive reinforcement is most effective, i.e. the person performing the behavior receives something that is positive for them. However, if the consequence is in fact a positive reinforcer, you only know if the person's behavior is repeated or increased.
When we discuss positive consequences with companies and organizations, the question almost immediately arises: money as a positive reinforcer. It can be, but it is in exceptional cases. There is a whole battery of other positive reinforcers that can be far more effective. Primarily social or work-related consequences are many times more effective or other consequences that have a value but are not cash.
The realization that there are stronger and more effective consequences to work with than bonuses and money has been welcome news for line managers in companies that have been unable to pay bonuses lately. Bonuses influence people but are a very blunt instrument when it comes to influencing behavior. The only behavior that a bonus directly reinforces is remaining on the payroll.
A far stronger and more immediate consequence is a social consequence like being an important person. If the response to a behavior is that someone cares, asks or asks us to tell them how we did it, it can often spur us to repeat what we did. An upward spiral is created where a behavior triggers positive consequences that spur more of the behavior and so on.
It usually is very popular workshops when we discuss how to get better at working with positive reinforcement and when participants get to discuss their own battery with possible consequences.
Contact us for a discussion on how we can help you with positive reinforcement.
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