Think about a past personal experience in which a behavior (either your own or that of someone in your environment) was met with punishment contingencies. First, describe the behavior, explaining whether you think the behavior was a rule-governed or contingency-shaped behavior. Then, explain how either a positive or negative punishment contingency was used and the resultant effect on the problem behavior.
Finally, review that same experience from a behavior analytic perspective and discuss whether the use of punishment may or may not have be an appropriate strategy to use. Explain how you might modify the prior approach to decrease the problem behavior using positive punishment, negative punishment, or extinction, being sure to identify how motivating operations and the use of reinforcement would play a role in increasing an alternate behavior.
