The weakening or discouragement of behavior by withholding pleasant events such as rewards/praise.

• A. Negative Reinforcement
• B. Punishment
• C. Negative Punishment
• D. Positive Reinforcement

Answer: (C)

Negative punishment is at work here: a desirable stimulus is removed after a behavior, causing that behavior to be less likely to occur again. In training, withholding rewards or praise after an undesired action teaches the dog that the action leads to losing something valued, so it becomes less likely in the future. This differs from negative reinforcement, which removes an unpleasant thing to encourage a behavior; and from positive reinforcement, which adds a reward to strengthen a behavior. It also distinguishes from adding an aversive consequence (positive punishment) because the consequence here is the removal of something pleasant, not the addition of something unpleasant.