They seem to pick up the religion and politics of their parents without effort. Using behavior modification, an expert can make a subject say a certain word in a short time. Every time the subject gets closer to saying apple, they smile and make a good comment. Negative reinforcement, may not work as good as positive reinforcement. Punishing a person or animal may help stop a behavior but spanking, for example, often produces low self esteem and makes the child to consider punishing back.
Negative reinforcement can thus back fire and cause the subject to stop learning.
In personal relationships behavior modification helps everything seem positive, even if the exact wording is not positive. If the couple is breaking up, they will probably take it negatively. B. F. Skinner was the pioneering proponent of positive reinforcement and behavior modification. The parent ego is bossy, the adult ego just makes neutral statements, and the child ego is playful. Cross transactions, that is people in different ego states, can have trouble communicating.