“Negative Reinforcements” are the big deals in the environment – the stressors. The things that cause “fight or flight”.
Positive Reinforcement isn’t always good – and negative reinforcement isn’t always bad. Positive reinforcement is seriously misunderstood – it’s not have a treat. It’s the removal of “negative reinforcement”.
There are 3 choices to remove “negative reinforcements” – these “big deals”. Flight, fight or socialization.
Want example of that to smoke your noodle? Lets begin.
Say a trainer enters the back yard of an “aggressive” dog with a catch pole and tries to snare it – but the dog is scared. The trainer is a negative reinforcement to the dog – a big deal. Now B.F Skinner defined “positive reinforcement” as the removal of “negative reinforcement” – and that’s been written about ad nauseum in my blogs.
If the dog bites at this point, it’s going to be a correction – now what does that mean? The trainers is “negative reinforcement” – the dog desires “positive reinforcement” – the removal of negative – AKA “fight or flight”. The dog can’t flee, the fence is keeping it contained – escape is a form of positive reinforcement. Get away from the negative. It’s no different from a human that is scared of spiders – see a spider, chances are you’re going to move away from it – positive reinforcement. You are removing yourself from “negative reinforcement” – AKA “flight”.
So flight has been removed – so it’s fight. Drive this thing away from me, make it leave – that is the positive reinforcement to the dog. It doesn’t want you in its space – and you’ve taken away the positive reinforcement it would always choose – to run.
Now, the trainer gets bit, kicks the dog – pile on the negative reinforcement. If it’s met with more aggression, it’s scrap on. Dog can’t flee – so now it has to fight for its’ life – now it’s an “aggressive” dog.
When you wrap your head around that? The dog will become easy.
The dog is scared, there are things that are negative reinforcers that the dog doesn’t trust or understand. The dog desires positive reinforcement. Fear and desire – negative and positive reinforcement.
But there is a 3rd option – Negative reinforcements that become positive reinforcements. Socialization.
I’m calm when entering a yard, all I want the dog to do is to calm down, engage their brain again and calmly choose to invade my space. I’m not a “big deal”, come check me out, say hi, I’m not a threat. I admit, I am a negative reinforcement when I come into the back yard – but I’m static – not piling it on. I’m waiting for the dog to calm and choose to join me – I want the dog to socialize to me – to see me as “positive reinforcement.”
That is called socialization. Meeting and investigating these “negative reinforcements” that are all around the dog. Allowing the dog to explore in a calm state to make negative reinforcements “not a big deal”.
When an animal finds peace in your presence, they will come to trust you.
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