BACKGROUND

From 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.