A baby will not stop crying, and he is driving his parents crazy. As a last resort, the father puts the baby in a laundry basket and sets the basket on top of the running dryer. The vibrations of the dryer soothe the baby and he falls asleep. The father congratulates himself on discovering this solution, which he most definitely will employ the next time the baby cannot be consoled. The dryer trick has thus been:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Negative reinforcement involves removing or avoiding something unpleasant to increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated in the future. In this case, the father removed the unpleasant experience of the baby crying by placing him on the running dryer, which resulted in the desirable outcome of the baby falling asleep. Therefore, the behavior of using the dryer to soothe the baby was negatively reinforced.

A Baby Will Not Stop Crying, and He Is Driving