Recidivism reveals a gap between punishment and rehabilitation. Psychology explains why incarceration alone rarely transforms behavior.

(Reuters Health) - Children who are spanked, slapped, shoved or otherwise physically punished may be more prone to antisocial behavior as adults, a U.S. study suggests. Four in five children in the ...

A "punisher" is defined as an event that follows a given response and reduces the future rate of that behavior. For example, if a child has their video game taken away for not completing their ...

Many parents dole out punishment when their children do something bad, but Alan Kazdin, director of the Yale Parenting Center, says that even gentle punishments like time outs don’t work. Instead, he ...

To spank or not to spank has been an ongoing debate for many parents. Now a new study says using physical punishment on kids can do real harm later in life. Let’s connect the dots. Scientists have ...

Punishing students for poor performance may be more effective than rewarding them for doing well, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis. In an ...

COLUMBIA – A team of University of Missouri researchers found children who are severely disciplined as infants have negative behavior up to fifth grade. The study found this to be especially true ...

Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental conditioning or Skinnerian conditioning, is a method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior. Through operant conditioning, ...

Researchers have measured gender differences in cooperation and punishment behavior. Results showed that men punish more than women, men obtain higher rank, and punishment by males decreases payoffs ...

Corporal punishment—usually referring to adults hitting children—was abolished in South Africa in 1997. The Constitutional ...

A new UC Davis study about the origin of cooperation may shed light on why nations punish other countries for human rights violations or why people sanction those who do not vote. Political scientist ...