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People Do It Because We Let Them: Part 5

This is actually sort of an addendum to Part 4 of this series, some thoughts I had quite a bit after writing the original series.

Random Reinforcement is Not Reinforcing Randomly

This is just one of those little pedantic notes both to illustrate a different concept and to make sure that I didn’t give people the wrong idea about what I meant by writing confusingly.  In Because We Let Them Part 1, I talked about how, once a behavior is established, moving to a random reinforcement schedule tends to reinforce it further.  Basically, you end up teaching that it’s worth doing the behavior ‘just in case’ a reward is coming.

And, again, you do this only after reinforcing a behavior (such as “sit” with a dog or whatever you’re trying to get a human to do) consistently enough for it to become a normal behavior (so you reinforce the absolute hell out of it initially).… Keep Reading

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People Do It Because We Let Them: Part 4

Ok, I’m going to pick up where I left off yesterday and move straight into a quick discussion of when we use punishment at the Austin Humane Shelter.  As I’ve noted, we ideally avoid this but the examples I’m going to provide are relevant as a segue to some more general comments and wrapping this up by trying to look at a whole shedload of different stuff. It’s going to be long today, had I planned better I would have done this across multiple weeks or every day this week but that’s not going to happen for scheduling reasons.  So…grab a drink and get ready.

The Role of Positive and Negative Punishment

Using approaches that revolve around reward methods work only when there is some behavior to reward in the first place.  With dogs this usually isn’t too hard since they generally want approval and usually do stuff that you can reward to shape their behavior.… Keep Reading

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People Do It Because We Let Them: Part 3

In Because We Let Them: Part 2, I looked at a handful of other concepts including ensuring that the action you think you’re using is actually the action that’s being interpreted and whether the lesson that your’e actually teaching is the lesson you’re teaching.  Finally I looked at the critical importance of consistency (especially in terms of punishing undesired behavior) and the idea of NILIF: Nothing In Life Is Free.  The dog has to do something to get something.

Today I’m going to tie all this together with a very detailed look at how we change the behavior that I started all of this with at the Austin Humane Shelter; to whit I’m going to look at how we correct leash pulling which is the question I started this series off with.

Mainly it’s just to illustrate how the different types of behaviorism can play a role.  It’ll also show the role of the lesson that’s being taught along with the issues of consistency and NILIF.  … Keep Reading

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People Do It Because We Let Them: Part 2

In Because We Let Them: Part 1, on top of filling some space until I talk about my own training next week, I managed to tie a lesson  I learned during one of the doggie training classes at the Austin Humane Shelter into a brief discussion of behaviorism and the 4 primary approaches taken to alter behavior.  I also realized that this was going to be too long and I’d need more than my original 2 parts.  Which screws up my scheduling but ah well, this is going to be a 4 update week.

In any case, the 4 major approaches to behavior modification I presented were (with some definition): positive reinforcement (providing reward), negative reinforcement (removing constant punishment), positive punishment (providing punishment) and negative punishment (removing a reward).

For each, I gave some dog and human related examples of each and I’d point folks to that article for details.  … Keep Reading

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People Do It Because We Let Them

In many contexts we often wonder why people do things we don’t like.  Why do friends take advantage of us?  Why do our athletes skip workouts?  Why does our significant other do things that they know bother us?  Why do people continue doing these things when they know they upset us?  Well the answer is simple: people do it because we let them.

Why Do Dogs Pull?

Since about September of last year, I’ve been volunteering at the Austin Humane Shelter, walking dogs, doing other activities and getting more training under my belt.  And I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been there. For example I’ve learned that I’m better at remembering the dog’s names than I am the other volunteers on my shifts.  I’ve also learned that I like most dogs better than I like most people though I pretty much knew that already.

But some of the things I’ve learned are actually a little more useful. … Keep Reading