This is a work in progress.
We have all heard of fight and flight – in dogs. But humans have the same response too – that’s your base Positive Reinforcement that is your Operant Conditioning. Operant Conditioning isn’t about have a treat, it’s about survival of the animal and of the species.
Your basic animal positive reinforcement are your needs for survival – food, water, safety, shelter – but the needs for the survival of the species is sex and procreation. That’s your operant conditioning. More about that later.
The Fight and/or Flight Response. What is it? And what exactly causes it?
Cortisol – your body’s fire alarm. The environment creates a stress or trigger – the animal body produces cortisol etc as a response – and the animals body is reacting to the excess cortisol load – not so much the environmental trigger. If you don’t believe that – look into CBD oil. CBD increases all the feel good chemicals in the brain – serotonin, dopamine, endorphins etc – and these naturally reduce cortisol. That’s why the dog on CBD will be less reactive – so too for humans. Interesting isn’t it?
When one looks at the actual science of B.F Skinner – one will understand that the environment shapes your behaviours through positive and negative consequences for your actions – not choices. Every action you make has a cause – every behaviour has a cause. And when something has a cause – the effect is only a symptom. Aggression and reactive are only symptoms – what’s causing it? Causality – cause and effect – we are slaves to it but yet – we don’t understand it.
What you know as “Punishment” is the removal of Positive Reinforcement – the animals desires, needs and wants. This is the real science. Punishment will result in a fight and/or flight response – cause it produces cortisol. Bit of a vicious cycle isn’t it? And people don’t realize how much they punish their dog.
Example. If your child reaches out and touches a hot stove – the negative consequence of a burn is the negative reinforcement that shapes your childs behaviour to avoid the stove. The environment known as the stove punished the child and shape their behaviour to avoid. It’s the negative reinforcements that keep us safe – keep us from doing stupid things and taking stupid actions. Or repeating them. But, instead of the child getting the consequence of a burn – wouldn’t it be better to turn the stove on and let the child feel the heat? I’m not telling you to stick their hand on it – but let them through social cognition that heat can burn – take away the need for the negative consequence. Chew on that for a while – and think about it in terms of your dog.
The dark side of positive reinforcement is your need to remove the negative reinforcements – the things you don’t want in your life. It’s the actions you take – showing aggression or running away that is part of your positive reinforcement.
If you’re scared of spiders, then spiders are a negative reinforcement – and the spider is punishing you. The spider is removing your positive reinforcement – your state of calm. What is your response? Cortisol increases and you go fight and/or flight – just like the dog. You can kill the spider or throw it outside – that in reality is your positive reinforcement – the removal of negative reinforcement. You can run away from the spider – remove yourself from the negative reinforcement. Or you can choose to understand spiders, make them “not a big deal”.
Negative reinforcements also make you want to make the world a better place. Your fight or flight response comes into play here as well. Everyone seen the ad of dogs in shelters – they are meant to make you feel bad and generate the response of fight or flight. They are a negative reinforcement to you. The fight in this situation is that you want to help – to make the bad stuff stop. So you can fight – offer up donations etc, you can flight – turn the channel or scroll on by. Or you can make it not a big deal.
If you step outside and it’s damn cold – you fight or flight. You can fight – put on a coat and whatever and push forward. You can flight – frig this, I’m going back to where it’s warm. Or if you’re like me, I went downhill skiing at -30 in jeans – not too bright but hey. I was indifferent to the cold.
There are so many examples of negative and positive reinforcement – and it’s all natural. Fear and Desire. Quietly yearning for what you don’t have while dreading losing what you do. Why do people feel the need to inflict punishment on a scared animal. A scared animal is already being punished by the environment.
That said, if you’re scared of spiders – and you see a spider? Would you want food during a fight/flight response? Would a smack in the mouth or a taser on your ass fix you? If I threw a spider at you – would that fix everything?
It can take a full 20 minutes once the animal goes calm for cortisol to start to dissipate. What does that extreme fear state do to the animal that you are? It can make us sick. It’s no different for the dog.
But trainers declare that you can’t reinforce fear?