A child is punished and temporarily stops his or her well-established bad behavior. However, the child soon goes back to acting badly. This is probably because ________.
A) the effects of punishment have habituated
B) punishment is known only to temporarily suppress or inhibit a behavior
C) the bad behavior has spontaneously recovered
D) the conditional emotional response to the punishment has generalized to another behavior

Question

A child is punished and temporarily stops his or her well-established bad behavior. However, the child soon goes back to acting badly. This is probably because ________.
A) the effects of punishment have habituated
B) punishment is known only to temporarily suppress or inhibit a behavior 
C) the bad behavior has spontaneously recovered 
D) the conditional emotional response to the punishment has generalized to another behavior

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Punishment is known to only temporarily suppress or inhibit a behavior, meaning that once the punishment is no longer present, the child may return to their bad behavior. This is because punishment does not teach the child what they should be doing instead and does not address the underlying reasons for the behavior. Therefore, the child may not have learned new, appropriate behaviors to replace the old ones.

A Child Is Punished and Temporarily Stops His or Her