Barney is a somewhat distractible second-grade student who finds schoolwork a bit boring. after a couple of minutes of working silently, barney often starts to misbehave until his teacher, ms. skinner, calls his name and scolds him. however, he enjoys this attention from her and continues to misbehave. with respect to barney’s misbehavior, ms. skinner’s attention serves as

With respect to Barney’s misbehavior, Ms. Skinner’s attention serves as reinforcement. Sometimes children misbehave just so they can get attention that comes along with being punished.  

In the above situation,

•The attention serves as a positive reinforcement for Barney’s misbehavior. He is a distractible kid and therefore likes to waste time by being reprimanded by his teacher.

•Positive reinforcement is a part of Operant Conditioning and involves adding a reinforcing stimulus after a behavior, making it more likely that it will occur again in the future.

•Negative reinforcement involves giving punishments to ensure the behavior will not occur again in the future.

Positive reinforcement in the simplest words means getting a prize for doing something good. In this case, Barney wants attention from his teacher and for him, this attention is good, even if he gets it by being punished or scolded by his teacher.  

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- Positive reinforcement.

Explanation:

Positive reinforcement exemplifies a branch of 'Operant Conditioning' that involves the reinforcement of desired behavior by attaching a pleasant stimulus. In behavioral psychology, operant conditioning works on the principle of reinforcing a particular behavior into a child through rewards(positive reinforcement) or punishments(negative reinforcement). Skinner proposed this theory of 'positive reinforcement' that enhances the probability of the repetition of desired behavior in the future too.

Thus, the given situation exemplifies 'positive reinforcement' as Barney wishes to seek Ms. Skinner's attention which is accomplished(the desired behavior) when he misbehaves and therefore, he repeats it(pleasant stimulus). Therefore, 'positive reinforcement' is the answer.

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