Reinforcement happens after a behavior and makes it more likely to repeat, like getting laughs after telling a joke. Bribery is a reward offered beforehand to get someone to do something. The catch: bribing a child to stop misbehaving can backfire by teaching them the bad behavior gets them what they want.
Let's talk about the difference between bribery and reinforcement. Now, reinforcement is something that comes after a behavior that increases the likelihood of that behavior happening again in the future. So if you tell a joke and people laugh, you are more likely to tell that joke in the future. Now, the difference with bribery is a little bit subtle, but it has a completely different impact on behavior. So bribery is when we give something in hopes of that positive behavior happening. So bribery happens before we see that positive behavior. It's often done on promise, right? If I give this to you, do you promise to behave? Do you promise to sit still? I often see bribery going along with stopping a negative behavior. We see a negative behavior happening, so we give a bribe to encourage that positive behavior to start. But what we're really doing is we're really reinforcing that negative behavior, right? Our children are thinking— our kids are thinking, hey, like, I engage in this negative behavior and I get something awesome, so I may want to do that again.
