The Reality Of Positive And Negative Reinforcement.

All of what we have the nerve to “dog training” today mainly goes back to the work of one man – Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner. It’s time to discuss what “Positive Reinforcement” really is – it’s not “have a treat”.

This is taken directly from Skinners’ book “The Behaviour Of Organisms” – published in 1938.

Skinner himself defined “positive reinforcement” as the removal of “negative reinforcement” – and he is absolutely correct. Skinner didn’t believe in punishment – those quadrants shouldn’t exist. Skinner applied shock under “negative reinforcement” – not “positive punishment”. If you use fear to train your animal – there will always be something in the world that that the animal fears more than you – and that creates unpredictability. Think about that. This is the very reason we see “Great dog, very obedient – but not well behaved”.

I was at a dog park on Friday past with a client and her fearful dog. At the end, we were talking by her vehicle and this little dog came close and barked at us. He’s off leash, he’s scared, he’s barking. I squat down to see if the dog would come in, the answer was no. The owner came over, squat down beside me, and the dog came running in right away for affection from me, and all I could do was smile. My client was a bit taken aback, because she witnessed what I’m trying to do with her dog. The dog is living in “negative reinforcement” – by squatting down beside me, the owner became “positive reinforcement”. She is being social for her dog. The dog trusts her – it doesn’t trust me – she vouched for me. She’s vouching for the world. That’s “Positive Reinforcement” – you’re asking the dog to join you in “Positive Reinforcement” – and it has to be their choice. Unfortunately, most dog trainers will tell you “don’t give the dog a choice”.

Let me explain.

Trainers created the quadrants of dog training based on bad analysis of B.F Skinner work. The system was built broken – why? Because the punishment quadrants shouldn’t exist. What are the quadrants? Positive/Negative reinforcement – Positive and negative punishment. Skinner wasn’t a fan of punishment so lets throw the last two punishment quadrants in the garbage. Skinner used Positive and negative reinforcement only. From his book “The Behavior Of Organisms” published in 1938 by the way.

Skinner himself defined “positive reinforcement” as the removal of “negative reinforcement” – and he is absolutely correct. For example, he would hook up an electrode to a dogs tail, and shock it til it performed an action. When the dog figured out the action – he turned off the power. Turning off the power is what he defined “positive reinforcement”. Turn the power on again – negative reinforcement – and the dog is going to learn repetition pretty quick. No? The dog doesn’t want negative reinforcement – it’s begging for positive reinforcement. How do you control humans? Fear and desire, negative and positive reinforcement – human beings are animals – Skinner knew this. Apply “pressure”, and the animal will beg for Positive reinforcement.

Lets apply Skinner to the “pandemic” for example. Negative and positive reinforcement – fear and desire. They locked people in their homes, created this atmosphere of fear – negative reinforcement. And people were begging for the restrictions to be lifted – “positive reinforcement”. That’s how it works – fear and desire.

It makes more sense when positive reinforcement is explained that way. Positive reinforcement was never “have a treat” or a clicker. Skinner was doing experiments in a lab on animals to understand US – the human animal. He wasn’t “training” animals. Trainers redefined “positive reinforcement” to apply the same food experiments that Skinner was doing in the lab. He never brought that to his human practice.

Positive cannot exist without negative – you cannot pull one quadrant of a system and declare “this fixes everything”. I don’t care if you call it “Positive Reinforcement”, “Purely Positive” or “Do No Harm”, whatever. And if people really think that positive reinforcement trainers can’t get negative, you might want to start reading. Violence begins where knowledge ends.

If I’m walking a dog that is scared, you can look at that as a form of negative reinforcement – it’s the electrode on the dogs tail. The dog is scared, the environment is scary – the environment is the negative reinforcement. The dog is living in negative reinforcement – and no animal, not even humans would choose to live in fear. But find one person you can trust – and I guarantee, you will choose to leave that negative reinforcement.

Lets apply positive and negative reinforcement to the human animal again. A friend was terrified of snakes, I love them, I have no fear of animals. At a pet store one day, had a small Boa Constrictor in my hands, my friend is watching me. I’m not making it a big deal, I’m not getting bit – and she thinks they are slimy – ewww. She trusts me, she trusts that I wouldn’t throw the snake at her to scare her. She reached out and touched it, “see, it’s not slimy”. Before long, she wanted to hold it. I became the example – the positive reinforcement. I got your back here, you’re not going to get bit, come stand by me, touch it etc. She made the choice to overcome her fear of snakes, to stop living in negative reinforcement – because she trusted me. Excited? Oh, she was excited – it was a huge reward for her making that choice to overcome fear. Now she’s walking around with this snake in her hands showing other people, and talking about how she was so afraid of them.

Fear is fear, the animal matters not – fear is lack of trust and understanding.

I didn’t change the environment, I can’t – but I used her trust in me so she could make that choice. The dog is no different. I can’t change the environment – but I want to be the “positive reinforcement” for the dog to come to, for the dog to want to be a part of.

I’m calm, I’m not freaking out, I’m not making anything a big deal. That’s a form of positive reinforcement – I want the dog to choose to come to this “positive reinforcement”. It has to be the animals choice to join you in positive reinforcement. The dog doesn’t want to live in the negative and they will at some point choose to join me. Join me in being calm, trust me, feel secure with me, I have your back. This is positive reinforcement. All I can do in this environment is to ask the dog to trust me, join me.

When your dog learns to trust you, that’s real positive reinforcement. The dog is making the choice to leave that negative zone – and join me. That is THE HIGHEST VALUE TREAT you can give your dog. The dog is choosing to leave the negative reinforcement zone – and come to positive, it’s begging for positive – to get rid of the electrode on its tail. When you can do that, you can change any fearful dog for the better.

This is when you become the highest value treat in the dogs life.

Your dog is your mirror, a reflection of the animal that you are. Be the change that you want in your dog and give them the choice to join you.

Here’s the real B.F Skinner in action on video working with a badly behaved child. He’s not using treats on the human animal, he’s not applying shock to the human animal – he’s giving the human animal choices. Being good or bad, it’s your choice – it’s up to the child to self manage their behaviour. If the child chooses to be good for an hour, he gets tokens, if he’s bad – he loses. Keep being good, get enough tokens, and you can pick a reward. It’s another form of positive reinforcement – but the animal needs the choice. Training literally dictates that you take away the dogs choice – “as long as the dog thinks it’s making a choice – then it is”. That’s what Skinner himself called “free will is an illusion”. The parents in the video didn’t give the child choices, they took it away out of fear.

If you don’t want to watch the whole video, listen to the parent interview at the 4:15 mark – and ask yourself – does this sound familiar? They punished the hell out of the child – didn’t work, made it worse. Now they want to rehome him. If that sounds familiar? Then take 30 minutes out of your life to watch the man himself in action working with the human animal. Then look at your dog.

And Skinner doesn’t believe in punishment. The child will punish themselves – self manage behaviours if given choices. Yes, your dog is capable of doing that too. That’s exactly what I did with Monty when I first took him off leash – he made the wrong choice, lost track of me – and ended up in negative reinforcement through his own choice. He flipped out, he self punished because he made the wrong choice. When I showed him where I was, he ran to “positive reinforcement” with all he had. Now, he learned “know where you left me”, keep an eye on me – through his own choices.

Animals can self-manage behaviours but they need to be given choices to do so. They need to learn from making actual choices. Give them back their brain, give them back their free will. Skinner didn’t care about the animal brain, he didn’t care about the thought process. He knew that humans could be controlled just like dogs with the electrode on their tail.