The positive only market has been happening for awhile now, but what does it mean? What is the science behind it?
Believe it or not, behavior is behavior- whether human, dog, cat….People don’t like to hear this because we are supposed to be the superior species! Well, the four quadrants of operant conditioning apply to us, the same as they apply to animals. So what are they?
Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment. What does this mean?
Positive reinforcement- Something is added and a behavior increases. IE.- My dog sits, I give him a treat, in the future he is more likely to sit. Or My child is screaming, I turn the TV on, my child stops screaming, so in the future my child is more likely to scream.
Negative reinforcement- Something is removed and a behavior increases. IE.- My dog sits, I release pressure on his collar, in the future my dog is more likely to sit. Or my child cleans his room, so I turn off the music he hates, in the future he is more likely to clean his room.
Positive punishment- Something is added and a behavior decreases. IE.- I throw a bonker(rolled up towel) at my dog, and my dog stops barking, in the future he is less likely to bark. Or I turn that annoying music on when my child says a bad word, in the future he is less likely to say a bad word.
Negative punishment- Something is removed and a behavior decreases. IE.- My dog jumps on me, I stop petting him. In the future my dog is less likely to jump on me. Or my child swears, I take away his tv and in the future he is less likely to swear.
So just remember, think reinforcement to INCREASE behavior and think punishment to DECREASE behavior. Think positive to ADD SOMETHING and think negative to REMOVE SOMETHING.
When I hear all the hype about positive only, or purely positive training, I honestly cringe. It is my opinion, a marketing ploy. It sounds nice and fuzzy and people eat it up. I would argue, there is no such thing as purely positive. If there is ever a behavior you want to decrease, you have to use punishment. Now those positive only people will argue about redirecting the dog, great! BUT, that doesn’t do anything to decrease the problem behavior from occurring, you’re simply just giving the dog another behavior to perform. That problem behavior is still there and it is just a matter of time until it shows. Any time you ignore a behavior, such as jumping, that is punishment. Yep, you just punished your dog….if you wanted to be purely positive, your trainer will tell you to train it to sit instead, great! Until your guest doesn’t have a cookie to give him for sitting so nicely. I am in no way knocking positive reinforcement, just the idea that 1 quadrant from the operant conditioning alone is a sole way to train a dog. I love using positive reinforcement in my training, that is how you teach a dog commands and tricks! However, when you want to start adding duration to a command your dog already knows, or you want to stop unwanted behavior, this is where the other quadrants come into play and you won’t end up with a solid, reliably trained dog without them.
If you would like to read more about this topic here is a great blog post from dog trainer Tyler Muto on this very subject: https://tylermuto.com/2017/03/17/cognitive-dissonance/
Happy Training,
Chaos to Calm K9
Chaos to Calm K9 