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So, let’s take a workplace example: if you have an employee who’s always late and you tell that employee that with every time said employee is late the likelihood of him getting a raise diminishes – that’ll be an example of negative punishment usage (negative because you’re removing something). Introduction of the stimuli is positive reinforcement or punishment, and removal of the stimuli is negative. Now, there are also different ways you can increase or decrease that probability and that’s exactly where “positive” and “negative” terms come into play. Reinforcement is being used to increase the probability of target behavior to occur, and punishment is being used to decrease that probability.

This is where the general notions of reinforcement and punishment come into the picture. strengthen, the first type of behavior and weaken the second type. Say, you want employees to show initiative on more occasions and be lazy less often. So, as we are talking about human behavior, simply put, we want some types of behavior to occur more often and other types – less often. “Positive” and “negative” mean totally different things in the fascinating science of operant conditioning, which is actually a science of analyzing and modifying human behavior. Positive reinforcement doesn’t just mean lavishing praise on someone and negative reinforcement doesn’t mean scolding a person. And when used appropriately it can do wonders for employee motivation and engagement. However, there is actually more art to it than that. Many people confuse positive and negative reinforcement and think the latter is synonymous with punishment.

Positive reinforcement changes behavior for the better, while criticism stabilizes negative behaviors and blocks change.