1. Punishment often fails to stop, and can even increase the occurrency of the undesired response.
2. Punishment arouses strong emotional responses that may generalize.
1. Punishment often fails to stop, and can even increase the occurrency of the undesired response.
2. Punishment arouses strong emotional responses that may generalize.

Operant Conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical Conditioning in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of "Voluntary behavior" or operant behavior.The main dependent variable is the rate of response that is developed over a period of time. New operant responses can be further developed and shaped by reinforcing close approximation of the desired response.
Negative Reinforcement: occurs when a behavior is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus thereby increasing the behavior's frequency.
Positive Punishment: occurs when a behavior is followed by an aversive stimulus, such as introducing a shock or loud noise, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.
Negative Punishment:occurs when a behavior is followed by the removal of a favorable stimulus, such as taking away a child's toy followed an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.
More about Operant Conditioning: http://www.wagntrain.com/OC/
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He came up with the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement.