Richard is the manager of the Sales department in his company. He ...

[Evvie72]

Richard is the manager of the Sales department in his company. He notices that several of the salespeople reporting to him are taking it easy.
 
  Their focus is to just meet the sales target and take no extra initiative to improve sales or their individual performances. As a result, the department's performance is declining. Explain how Richard can encourage his salespeople to improve their performances using the shaping techniques.
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Both positive and negative reinforcement result in learning.
 
  Indicate whether the statement is true or false.

[ansleighelindsey]

Answer to Question 1

Answer: Student answers may vary.
The tendency to repeat learned behavior is influenced by reinforcement or lack of reinforcement that happens as a result of the behavior. Reinforcement strengthens a behavior and increases the likelihood that it will be repeated. Lack of reinforcement weakens a behavior and lessens the likelihood that it will be repeated.
When a behavior is followed by something pleasant, it's called positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement increases the likelihood that the desired behavior will be repeated. To positively reinforce good performances, Richard can offer an incentive for each sale above a certain target.
Rewarding a response by eliminating or withdrawing something unpleasant is negative reinforcement. To negatively reinforce good performances, Richard can offer to do away with penalties for tardiness. The desired behavior (better performance) is being encouraged by the withdrawal of something unpleasant (penalties for tardiness).
Punishment penalizes undesirable behavior and will eliminate it. To use punishment, Richard can penalize all salespeople who sell below a specified target each month.
Eliminating any reinforcement that's maintaining a behavior is called extinction. When a behavior isn't reinforced, it gradually disappears. He could analyze the situation to find out what encourages the salespeople to perform poorly and then use extinction to eliminate the cause of the poor performance. However, as Richard is trying to encourage a positive behavior, he might not be able to use extinction.
Both positive and negative reinforcement result in learning. They strengthen a desired behavior and increase the probability that the desired behavior will be repeated. Both punishment and extinction also result in learning but do so by weakening an undesired behavior and decreasing its frequency.

Answer to Question 2

Answer: TRUE

[Evvie72]

Excellent

[mjenn52]

Thanks for the timely response, appreciate it