Reinforcement theory is a theory proposed by American psychologist and behavioral scientist Burrhus Frederic Skinner and others. It is also called operant conditioning theory and behavior modification theory

Reinforcement theory is a theory proposed by American psychologists and behavioral scientists Skinner, Hersey, Blanchard and others. It is also called behavior modification theory or behavior modification theory. Skinner received a PhD in psychology from Harvard University in 1931 and returned to Harvard in 1943 to teach until his retirement in 1975. In 1968, he won the U.S. National Medal of Science, becoming the second psychologist to receive such a medal. Skinner believed that people have no dignity and freedom. Whether people do a certain behavior or not do a certain behavior only depends on one influencing factor, which is the consequences of the behavior. He proposed a theory of "operant conditioning", which believes that people or animals will adopt certain behaviors to act on the environment in order to achieve a certain purpose. When the consequences of this behavior are beneficial to him, this behavior will be repeated in the future; when it is not beneficial, this behavior will weaken or disappear. People can use this method of positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement to influence the consequences of the girl's behavior, thereby modifying her behavior.

The first person to propose the concept of reinforcement was the famous Russian physiologist Pavlov. In Pavlov’s classical conditioning, reinforcement refers to the presentation of an unconditioned stimulus following a conditioned stimulus. It is a behavior. Preliminary, natural, passive, specific process. In Skinner's operant conditioning, reinforcement is a kind of artificial manipulation, which refers to the reward and punishment process that accompanies a behavior to help the behavior repeat itself.

The behavior of experimental subjects such as Pavlov is a response caused by a stimulus, which is called "responsive response (respondents)". The behavior of Skinner's experimental subjects was emitted autonomously by the organism, which is called "operant response". Classical conditioning can only be used to explain learning based on response behavior. Skinner called this type of learning "S (stimulus) type conditioning." Another learning model, that is, the model of operant or instrumental conditioning, can be used to explain learning based on operant behavior. He called it "R (reinforcement) type conditioning" and called it "S-R" Psychology theory.

This theoretical view advocates targeted incentives and only looks at the relationship between employee behavior and results, rather than highlighting the content and process of incentives. This theory holds that a person's behavior is a function of the stimuli they receive. If this stimulus is beneficial to him, the behavior will be repeated; if it is not beneficial to him, the behavior will weaken until it disappears.