Reinforcement

In my field, we talk a lot about reinforcement: how we act towards another to encourage a specific type of behavior. This makes me consider my life and the kind of behavior that we consciously, and unconsciously, redeem with our attention. We do it everywhere. Think about the last time you had a conversation with a friend. You probably looked them in the eye, smiled, and demonstrated behavior that you were listening, right? You reinforced their dialogue with behavior that indicated that you cared and were interested in what they were saying.

I think about how we often treat each other in relationships. We reinforce a love interest by responding to their text messages or calls... and sometimes we do this with people that we aren't interested in at all. There are cases where we reinforce a behavior merely because we enjoy the attention. We let them buy us a drink or agree to have lunch (we're just hanging out as friends, right?). We reinforce behaviors without much conscious appraisal of its meaning.

We also engage in activities of reinforcement for non-pleasant areas like re-hashing the same fight over and over again - exemplifying that, yes, you do want to keep fighting about it because you're not ready to walk away yet. When trying to separate from someone that we don't want to leave, it's reinforcing behaviors (even negative ones like re-hashing a fight) that give us cause to stay.

What are other ways that you reinforce people with your behavior? Are you reinforcing others in a positive way or a negative way?