Positive Reinforcement is your desire not to die – it’s everything you need to survive – including aggression and reactivity – to fight for your life – or run for your life – fight and flight. Its all about survival value. Basic hunger and thirst are negatives in your life – they are required for survival. And Positive Reinforcement is all about removing those “negative reinforcements”. Negative reinforcements generate behaviors – when you get hungry – the action to take to remove the negative is seek out food. When you get thirsty – negative reinforcement – your positive reinforcement is to get a drink. Go outside and it’s cold – negative reinforcement. Your positive reinforcement is to get a sweater or coat – or go back inside.
Dog trainers define Positive Reinforcement as “have a treat” and adding things – but that’s another blatant lie. Another big part of that lie is that Positive Reinforcement is “all positive” – when in fact – Positive Reinforcement has a huge dark side – a huge negative. It’s Yin and Yang – you cannot have positive without the possibility of a negative.
Positive Reinforcement at it’s core – is the removal of Negative Reinforcement. Negative Reinforcement is the removal of positive reinforcement. I’m going to explain this – but first – another quote from Skinner. Once you read it and understand it – you’ll understand why that shock/e-collar seems to work – but it doesn’t.
The shock is a Negative Reinforcement to the dog – the shock is removing the dogs Positive Reinforcement. The difference here – Skinner put the onus on the dog to figure out what it took to remove the shock to the tail. As the dog moved, the shock carried on – but Skinner wanted one response – the dog didn’t know what it was. When the dog moved the foreleg – Skinner turned the power off – the removal of Negative Reinforcement is a Positive Reinforcement. Now – turn the power back on – and it won’t take the dog long to figure out that lifting it’s front left leg removes the Negative Reinforcement. They learn to replicate pretty quick no? Well – that’s exactly what the shock collar does – and it will do the same to you.
Positive Reinforcement is part and parcel of Operant Conditioning. And your Operant Conditioning is everything you are – all of your past experiences good and bad, your feelings, your desires, your hopes – your fears etc.
Your Positive Reinforcements are the things you need to stay alive as the animal that you are. The basic Primal Positive Reinforcements are food, water and shelter – that’s the basics for survival of the animal that we are. Sex and procreation are the basic positive reinforcements to keep the species alive. But this is defining positive reinforcement as a noun. But it’s also a verb.
Positive Reinforcement is all about survival value. So when you meet something new in the environment – there will be either a positive or negative consequence. If it’s of positive consequence, you will want to meet it again – or make something not a big deal. If it’s of negative consequence – you’re going to avoid – and you will always avoid – that’s operant conditioning.