Negative reinforcement occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because an aversive event or stimulus is removed or prevented from happening.

-Example-: A child cleans his or her room, and this behavior is followed by the parent stopping “nagging” or asking the child repeatedly to do so. Here, the nagging serves to negatively reinforce the behavior of cleaning because the child wants to remove that aversive stimulus of nagging.

-Example-: A person puts ointment on a bug bite to soothe an itch. If the ointment works, the person will likely increase the usage of the ointment because it resulted in removing the itch, which is the negative reinforcer.