An unpleasant or negative outcome that serves to encourage a specific behavior. For example, a skin cream advertisement that shows a model with wrinkled skin is designed to encourage consumers to buy and use the advertised skin cream. Fear appeals in advertising messages are examples of negative reinforcement. Many life insurance commercials rely on negative reinforcement to encourage the purchase of life insurance policies.
However, negative reinforcement should not be confused with punishment, which discourages repetition of a specific behaviour.
