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Extinction Procedures
Like punishment, an extinction procedure is used when you need to get your subject to stop doing something. Or, at any rate, when you need to get him to do it less often.
In an extinction procedure, the rewards that fuel the target response are withheld until your subject eventually stops emitting the targeted behavior.
For example: Imagine that your dog always begs for scraps while people are trying to eat dinner, because folks respond by feeding him. To extinguish that response by way of an extinction procedure, you would simply need to stop responding to his begging behavior by feeding him and, instead, just ignore the dog until he gives up and stops begging.
Research shows that the target behavior will be more resistant to extinction if that behavior has historically been maintained by a high magnitude of reinforcement. Also, the longer the response in question has been reinforced over time, the more resistant it will be to extinction.
However, the more times the target response has been extinguished on previous occasions, the more readily it will fall prey to extinction the next time around.