What is the defining property of addiction? We dust off a several-decades-long debate about the relative importance of two forms of reinforcement—positive reinforcement, subjectively linked to ...

Drug addiction is a chronically relapsing disorder that has been characterized by (1) compulsion to seek and take the drug, (2) loss of control in limiting intake, and (3) emergence of a negative ...

Since the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 introduced players to achievements and trophies, players have been hunting them down to finish a game to its complete capacity. This addition had created a new ...

Negative reinforcement encourages specific behaviors by removing or avoiding negative consequences or stimuli. It is different than punishment, which aims to discourage a specific behavior. Negative ...

Scottish philosopher James Beattie said a mouthful when he observed that "in every age and every man, there is something to praise as well as to blame." In other words, people face a choice when ...

Nearly a century ago, psychologist B.F. Skinner pioneered a controversial school of thought, behaviorism, to explain human and animal behavior. Behaviorism directly inspired modern reinforcement ...