Editing Reinforcement (section)

===Negative reinforcement===

Negative reinforcement increases the rate of a behavior that avoids or escapes an [[aversives|aversive situation or stimulus]].<ref name=Flora/>{{rp|252–253}} That is, something unpleasant is already happening, and the behavior helps the person avoid or escape the unpleasantness.  In contrast to positive reinforcement, which involves adding a pleasant stimulus, in negative reinforcement, the focus is on the removal of an unpleasant situation or stimulus.  For example, if someone feels unhappy, then they might engage in a behavior (e.g., reading books) to escape from the aversive situation (e.g., their unhappy feelings).<ref name="Flora" />{{rp|253}}  The success of that avoidant or escapist behavior in removing the unpleasant situation or stimulus reinforces the behavior.

Doing something unpleasant to people to prevent or remove a behavior from happening again is ''punishment'', not negative reinforcement.<ref name="Flora" />{{rp|252}} The main difference is that reinforcement always increases the likelihood of a behavior (e.g., [[channel surfing]] while bored temporarily alleviated boredom; therefore, there will be more channel surfing while bored), whereas punishment decreases it (e.g., [[hangovers]] are an unpleasant stimulus, so people learn to avoid the behavior that led to that unpleasant stimulus).