Incentives Lecture

The power point on incentives was filled with great information and I feel like it is an important part of psychology. It shows the different ways to enforce behavior and that there are reinforcers and punishments for all actions. Reinforcers increase the behavior while punishments decrease the behavior. When you’re trying to teach your puppy to go outside to use the bathroom, you use both reinforcers and punishments. When the puppy does not go outside to use the bathroom, they get a punishment such as getting yelled at or being put outside for a little bit. It shouldn’t be anything too harsh because that can be damaging even to a dog. When the dog does go outside to use the bathroom, they use a reinforcer like a treat and being excited that they did it. This will encourage the dog to continue to go outside to receive the reward.

The part about losses loom larger than gains is very true and something I never really thought about before. The exampled use actually made me think and realize how true it really is. I honestly would be more upset about losing $10 then I would be happy about getting $10. When you get $10, most people think it’s kind of useless because you can’t really buy much with $10 anymore but when you lose $10, you get sad about the things you were going to buy with it. I found this part to be really intriguing.