Primary Reinforcement: Reinforcement that reduces a physiological drive or is physiologically appealing in nature. Examples: (1) Drinking water quenches thirst. (2) Ice cream tastes good and can be used to reward a child for good behavior.

Secondary Reinforcement: Reinforcement that is social in nature. Example: Verbal praise encourages more of the behavior that is praised. Money is technically a secondary reinforcer, but it is very closely associated with obtaining primary reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement: The presentation of a positive stimulus after a behavior that leads to an increase in the behavior. Example: Giving a child a treat after they work hard on a task will support and encourage such behavior.

Negative Reinforcement: The removal of an aversive stimulus that leads to an increase in the behavior that resulted in the stimulus ending. Example: When a heroin addict is craving using the drug removes the unpleasant craving. There is also a positive reinforcing aspect to drug abuse in that it also immediately brings positive sensations. The strong, immediate and primary nature of the reinforcement makes drug abuse difficult to stop.

Punishment temporarily a behavior, especially when the punishing agent is present. There are two types of punishment:

Presentation of an Aversive Stimulus:Something unpleasant follows a behavior such as a verbal scolding or some other undesirable consequence.

Removal of a Positive Stimulus: Taking away something desirable as a consequence of behavior. Example: Grounding a teenager for poor or improper behavior.

Extinction is the absence of any reinforcement following a behavior. Behaviors that are not reinforced tend to diminish and disappear over time. As a general rule, any behavior that frequently occurs is being reinforced. The reinforcer may be unknown (such as a hidden internal reinforcer), but if the behavior occurs with great frequency there is something maintaining it. Undesirable behaviors are extinguished essentially by eliminating their reinforcers, and socially this often involves ignoring them. When extinction begins there may be an initial increase in the undesired behavior, but eventually the behavior decreases.

Fixed Ratio: Reinforcing after a certain number of behaviors. The simplest schedule is one behavior followed by one reinforcement (1:1). A subject may, however, need to behave multiple times before receiving reinforcement. A behavior that must occur four times before reinforcement is more strongly learned and harder to extinguish (4:1).

Variable Ratio: When a behavior is reinforced after an average number of occurrences. The person might need to perform on average four times before they receive reinforcement. Sometime reinforcements would be back to back, and other times more than four performances apart, but on average every fourth behavior would be reinforced.

Fixed Interval: Here time is used as the determinate of when reinforcement occurs. A special education teacher might go around the room every quarter hour and verbally praise each student working on the assigned task. The teacher would reinforce students three times during an hour class period with the reinforcement coming at a quarter past the hour, at half past the hour, and at three-quarters past the hour.

Variable Interval: Time is again the determinate of when reinforcement occurs, but is on a floating average rather than at fixed times. Using the above example, the teacher would reinforce students three times during the period, but not necessarily on the quarter hours.

Stimulus Generalization: When a stimulus acquires the ability to elicit a response, other stimuli similar to it will have some potential to elicit the same response. Example: A child who receives a painful shot from a male doctor wearing glasses may have apprehensive feelings around other male adults wearing glasses.

Stimulus Differentiation: This is where a subject recognizes that the stimuli are different, and that behavior appropriate to one are not appropriate to the other. Example: Behavior expected from a child in the presence of a female classroom teacher may be very different from behavior expected in the presence of the child's mother.

Successive Approximation: This means that we shape or teach simpler behaviors first and move gradually toward the mastery of more complex behaviors.

Time-Out: This is a behavioral procedure where a misbehaving person is briefly removed from the ongoing activity as a signal to them of their misbehavior. It is a type of punishment that is designed to be brief with an opportunity to practice appropriate behavior shortly following.

Systematic Desensitization: A procedure developed by Joseph Wolpe to cure individuals of phobias and severe anxieties. The person makes a hierarchy of the feared stimulus, is taught deep muscle relaxation, and then applies this relaxation beginning with the lowest level of the hierarchy (which is often imagery) and progressing as far as they can or wish to go.

Aversive Conditioning: Pairing an aversive stimulus with a behavior you are trying to reduce or eliminate. In some smoking programs, people are taught to imagine a diseased and dying lung each time before they want to light a cigarette. Aversive conditioning needs to be used with great care.

Flooding: An aversive procedure where the person is forced to stay in the presence of the unpleasant stimulus until it loses its power to elicit their negative emotional reaction.

Thought Stopping: This is a cognitive behavioral procedure where an individual works on eliminating a dysfunctional thought. The dysfunctional thought is often an automatic sentence (a term coined by Aron Beck) that intrudes into their thinking. The person typically wears a rubber band on their wrist that they snap when the dysfunctional thought occurs. They silently shout "No" to themselves, snap the rubber band, and then think the positive or correct thought that challenges it. It is a type of aversive conditioning.

Negative Practice: As note earlier, any behavior that occurs with great frequency is being reinforced. Too much of such behavior, however, will generally be experienced as aversive. Negative practice is where the person repeats the undesirable behavior until it becomes unpleasant to them. If someone cusses a great deal and wishes to reduce that behavior, cussing into a tape recorder for an hour each day may result in cussing becoming aversive to them.