Questions

1. The daughter in this situation is trying to mow the grass with both positive and negative reinforcement. There are many plans that can come into contact with this. A positive reinforcement during this process could be paying the child after mowing the grass and understanding that every time she mows the grass, there is something in it for her. This gives her something to look forward to and a reason to want to mow the grass. A negative reinforcement could be not hearing the dad yell anymore about it not being down. The more she waits and does not do this act, the more the dad gets mad and has to yell to get something out of her.

If eventually there has to be punishment for not doing as she is told by her father, the positive and negative punishments could be enforced. A positive punishment would be something along the lines of spanking the daughter or making her stay at home. A negative punishment would be to take something away from her, like a television or a cell phone, something of that matter. There is always a way to make sure the parent gets his or her way.

Myers, David G. (2006). Reinforcement and punishment. (Eighth Ed., Ch. 8). Retrieved October 13, 2006.

2. I have actually had to teach a dog tricks before. The only way that worked the best for me was using treats and also making them come up and down depending on the trick. The more a dog learns the motions the human being is doing and the words that are coming out, the more the dog will understand what to do. As long as the human does the same thing every time with the dog, there should be no problem in teaching it to shake "hands" with visitors when they walk in the door.

The dog is learning as it goes, so this might take time. The less frustrated the human is, the easier it will be to teach the dog new tricks. Most often, the dog needs a treat or something after each time that it does something good so he or she knows to do it again the same way. It is all a case of learning.

3. Continuous reinforcement in my opinion is the only way to go. If a person is not taught each time they do something wrong, then they will not understand why he or she is getting in trouble. For example, a little boy around the age of 10 could be picking on other children at school. The teacher calls