Title: reinforcement
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - reinforcement
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.12046
Status: current

Definition
Use of a stimulus in operant conditioning to increase the likelihood that a particular behavior will occur.

Notes
1) Reinforcement may be positive (using a desirable stimulus) or negative (removing or withholding an adverse stimulus).
2) In contrast to reinforcement, use of stimuli to decrease a behavior is called punishment.

Related Term
- operant conditioning: https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11688

Source
- PAC, 2015, 87, 841. 'IUPAC Glossary of terms used in neurotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2015)' on page 901 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-0103)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12046/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12046/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/12046/xml

Citation: Citation: 'reinforcement' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.12046
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Accessed: 2026-07-24T05:39:34+00:00