ABSTRACT
Punishment is a two-term contingency of response–consequence that occurs naturally in daily life and can be applied by individuals to reduce or stop undesired behaviours. The term punishment has been appropriated from its original behavioural definition into everyday usage, away from the technical defined contingency of behaviour reduction to a social justice and retribution connotation (Kazdin, 1994). There are two primary forms or punishment, negative punishment and positive punishment, and there are multiple ways that each of those can be delivered. There are also a number of factors that will influence the effectiveness of a punishment procedure when it is delivered. Finally, the use of punishment as an intervention is surrounded with controversy, primarily due to the number of potential side effects that may result from the use of punishment, both for the individual receiving punishment and the one administering punishment.
