Question

Sales representatives at X Bank generally dislike the firm’s weekly sales meetings because they would rather be out selling than sitting in a meeting. X Bank recently initiated a policy of excusing sales reps who make their sales quotas from weekly sales meetings. Theoretically, the bank is motivating employees through a. negative reinforcement. b. disciplinary reinforcement. c. continual, repetitive reinforcement. d. positive reinforcement. e. extinction.

Answer 1

Answer:

a. negative reinforcement.

Explanation:

The concept of negative reinforcement was first developed and described by B. F. Skinner, when he carried out his experiment on operant conditioning. According to B. F. Skinner, negative reinforcement involves the increasing of the likelihood of a desirable behavior to be exhibited by removing an aversive stimulus.

In the question given above, the aversive stimulus that is removed by X bank is the "sitting in a meeting" that sales representatives dislike, while the behavior that is elicited by removing this aversive stimulus is the achieving of the set sales quotas by sales representatives, which would exempt them from the meeting.

Theoretically, bank X is motivating employees through negative reinforcement.