Are You Motivated By Negative Reinforcement?

Like when someone tells you that you're a failure and can't achieve your goal. Does it motivate you to rise up and prove them wrong? Or do you need the encouragement to reach your goal?

I can see how this would go one way or the other for most people.

Looking back on my past, I'd say I've been discouraged by negative reinforcement way more often than motivated.

 

No. But I do take constructive criticism very well.

I am a very positive person in general, and I believe that to motivate someone, positive reinforcement is necessary.

Negative reinforcement isn't productive, in my opinion.

 

why would someone be telling me I'm a failure?

 

Because misery loves company, and the miserable like to deflate the self esteem from others to bring them down to their level.

 

I'm not a failure so why would I listen to someone who isn't successful. It makes no sense to make that choice.

 

I was in JROTC back in grade school and high school, and this is the kind of negative reinforcement that was given. It worked becuase it was nothing personal. I was called weak by the same people that would hug me when I came to school after having a huge fight with my mom, which happen a lot. It was just a tactic for training. Nothing more or less. We were one of the few clubs, besides cheerleading that would wake up at 5 in the morning, no matter the weather to do God knows what. We were the first at school and the last to go home. We needed to be tough. It was noting personal. However, if you tell someone they're a failure becuase you have something personal against them, against yourself, or a combination of both, then it doesn't serve any justice to anyone. It destroys people more than anything else ever world.

Positive reinforcement seems to have better results statistically, anyways. You have to know how to properly do it, and not everyone is educatated enough to do it correctly. If my superior used a topic that he knew I had a sensitivity to, I would have gotten up, flipped him the middle finger, and walked off. That or cried. Depending on my inner strength that day. For example, if he talked about what I told him in regards to my mom. That is hitting someone below the belt.

 

Interesting topic 6-eyed shaman

I was surrounded by negativity the whole time growing up and into early adulthood. There were negative comments but not outright "you're a failure/loser etc". Somehow I managed to get myself out of a troubled family, get an education past second year of high school (first ever in my family) hold down a job and be a responsible adult....most of the time. I really don't believe the negativity has motivated me but it did make me see what I didn't want for my life.

For me I think positive but realistic encouragement/reinforcement is the best and kindest way.

I would have to agree with two previous posters. Abarambling, "Depending on my inner strength that day" I can be weak or strong day to day. But I think part of the key is to look at and, honestly evaluate your own behaviour.

And Jo King, I agree "I'm not a failure so why would I listen to someone who isn't successful. It makes no sense to make that choice. " but sometimes things become so ingrained that people can't seem to make the logical decision to not listen when someone throws some negativity their way.

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I dont listen to constructive criticism, Im always smarter than the person delivering it

 

And More Modest Aswell.......



Cheers Glen.

 

that's not negative reinforcement. negative reinforcement is when you reward a behavior by taking away an aversive stimulus. like if i stood there calling you a failure constantly until you did what i wanted you to do, and then i immediately shut up.

to answer the question, i don't really know if doing that sort of thing helps or hurts me more. i'm sure it can go either way, depending on a whole lot of factors. and it could also have no effect, depending on a whole lot of factors. i really don't think i've been told that i can't do something that often though, so i don't have a lot of evidence to base my answer on.

 

I definitely respond well to a warm, encouraging environment.

I also respond well to good natured shit talking, but this isn't really negative reinforcement - if it is good natured than the person doing the shit talking is already on my side anyways.

I've actually given a good bit of thought to the subject since becoming a parent - from my experience in parenting positive reinforcement is always very effective, especially long term. Negative reinforcement may do the trick for the short term but we generally end up fighting the same battles every day with negative reinforcement. There is rarely any real lesson learned with this technique

 

no. fear and anxiety of the mob mentality, yes, but being 'dissed', i just consider the source beneath consideration.
i mean, putting someone down is illogical to begin with. at least for any kind of world i would want to live in.
and whatever my relation to a person doing so, is just the randomness of the universe, but it is a reason to avoid their company.
and certainly to never entirely trust them.

i really, i don't think i'd have associated the question with the op, if the op hadn't made the connection that it did.
its just not a perspective i would normally think in terms of.

 

Reinforcement is, by definition, motivating. If it doesn't make a behavior more likely to occur in the future, it ain't reinforcement.


So yes. . But positive reinforcement is usually more pleasant.

 

like i said, the only 'behavior' it is likely to motivate, is having a low opinion of the moral character of those doing so, and avoiding their company.
the same if they're a parent or a boss or a relative or a government official, a celebraty or what ever, to me, none of those things make an aggressive person any different then if they were a homeless alky sleeping under a bridge.
that's why i'm not impressed by a piece of filth like trump. i mean i'm scared, that's the one thing i'm scared by, the mob mentality they can stir up the way hitler did, but otherwise, they're just the same as any other piece of filth.
really i have much more respect for a homeless person, if they're homeless out of a conviction to avoid supporting a way of life they personally don't believe in.
i mean i salute and honor that. but motivated by someone putting someone else down? just in one way, and that is avoiding them as utterly and entirely as is within my capacity to do so.

 

I agree with I'minmyunderwear's assessment, and to answer the question... I don't recall the last time I was stimulated with negative reinforcement.

 

" negative reinforcement is when you reward a behavior by taking away an aversive stimulus. like if i stood there calling you a failure constantly until you did what i wanted you to do, and then i immediately shut up."


That does not sound like negative reinforcement to me, but instead to me, it sounds like what cult people do to gain mind control...Strip someone of their identity altogether, and the person probably had a fragile ego to begin with and then come in and take over to make them do exactly what you want.

That would never work on me. I have too strong of a sense of self.

 

I might make you think it does to get you to shut the f up, though.

 

Nothing really deters me from my mission.

 

well, i suppose cult people may use some of the principles of operant conditioning to help control their subjects. of course, my example was not a realistic one, but it demonstrates what negative reinforcement actually is.

reinforcement is something that rewards a behavior, thus making it more likely to occur again in the future. punishment is the opposite, an undesirable stimulus in response to a behavior that makes the behavior less likely to occur again. the positive and negative just describe the type of reinforcement or punishment; positive means something is added (something pleasant in reinforcement, or something negative in punishment) and negative means something is taken away (something negative in reinforcement, or something pleasant in punishment).