B.F Skinner and Positive Reinforcement.

This is a video of B.F Skinner, the man himself that is blamed for the creation of the quadrants. Skinner KNEW that punishment wasn’t effective, it was useless and he proved that Positive Reinforcement works better. But his variation of Positive Reinforcement is far different from what trainers are claiming. He used food reward in a lab environment controlled by the computers of the time – humans are not computers. You do not have the timing that Skinner had in a lab. What he did in a lab didn’t necessarily translate to his human practice.

Watch the following video. The child is classified as dangerous by the parents, the kid is aggressive. Aggression is only a symptom, they tried to control and manage the childs life to the point where they wanted to rehome him permanently. If that sounds familiar, read on…

Pay close attention to the 4:30 mark and listen to what the parents say about what they did to the child.

“We were beyond controlling him anymore, we didn’t know what to do, too deep for us”.
“Actually what we were looking for when we came here was a place to put him permanently, just eliminate him from the family. He’s dangerous to everybody, jumps out of cars, threw things, dangerous items.”

Psychologist asked “What have you done to try to control these behaviours”.

“In the end, try to beat him (laughing). The normal things, alot of punishment, alot of whippings you know, taking away things, this type of thing.”

Enter “Positive Reinforcement”, the game changer. Psychologists put the child on a token system – he gets tokens for every hour he is good – and the child can use these tokens to trade for something that he wants. It’s about Self management of behaviour through self gratification – getting what you want – and dogs are very capable of doing this. All we have to do is listen to the communication.

If a dog is barking at the end of a leash at another dog – what is it trying to say? That it wants to meet the dog? This is where cooperation comes in – give me calm, you get to meet the dog. Give me calm, and the world is your oyster.

Robert Hynes Dog Training
Serving Edmonton, Alberta and surrounding areas.
admin@roberthynesdogtraining.com