스페셜 에피소드: 안전벨트 비유와 부적 강화

And interestingly, like Skinner is partially to be blamed for, for this kind of confusions. When he first introduced it as negative reinforcement, he pretty much meant punishment as well. There was no, a distinction between negative reinforcement and positive punishment. That's a, important thing to, to note. Then interestingly, he, later in like late 50s or so, he changed it. He redefined. He made a different definition to where he separated the two. He never really admitted anywhere that I know in his papers and, and lectures that he originally put them in a, in one and the same. So as with everything else, that takes a momentum. But again, it's a, it's really not a, not a good idea to think that they are, um, one, one and the same, and it's definitely not a good idea to always con-sting that negative reinforcement uses low level of aversive and positive punishment always use high level of aversive. This is, this is big misconception. As we said, reinforcement, punishment, controlling behavior, either I ask you to do something and I reinforce it or ask you not to do something and I stop you from it. Now when somebody is, somebody like let's say in the training camps that use electric collars a lot and you will have trainers that will say, well, I only use low level stimulation. And this is misleading and it's incorrect. This is for the same reason why the seat belt analogy is incorrect. Can you tell me why is it incorrect? I'll tell you then. Don't, don't feel, you can say. But basically, you know, the, the, the one reason is to present it as, well, it's not going to be so bad. It's only low level. It's a little bit of discomfort, a little bit unpleasant. No big deal. And that might be the case, but it doesn't have to be always the case. When you think of the seat belt. What does it do? It has a constant tone. Different seat belts have different, a little bit different variations. But they all give a tone, a signal, right? After a little bit, if you don't put your seat belt on, in some cars, the seat belt tone goes a little bit higher. What happens next? The tone in most cars stops. And why does it stop? Because at some point, if you really were that stubborn not to put the seat belt on, you're obviously not going to anymore. Right? Now, it has, it has these two features, the, the tone. But it's mostly a signal. It's mostly a warning signal. It's like, hey, remember to do that. Right? It's also, we can argue it, like we can say that it's a, some sort of a signpost.

You know how we talk when we talk about signposts? I mean, it's really like you think of a sign on the, on the street. It guides you. It tells you what to do. It suggests you what to do. Because probably there is consequences. Maybe, maybe you'll crash. Maybe you'll hurt yourself. Maybe the police writes you a big ticket. But it's still a suggestion, a reminder, a signal. It's not, that signal not necessarily controlling you. Right? How we talk controlling behavior. Now, is it annoying? Yeah. That, that persistent sound, you know, it sure can be aversive for many people. But I believe that most people respond to it, not because of the aversiveness, but the reminder of, I should put my seatbelt on. I don't want to get a ticket. I don't want to get in a crash and not have my seatbelt on. One or the two are both in combination. It's not aversive enough. If any person says, I don't want to do it, you're not going to do it. Right? So, think of positive reinforcement. You have some Labrador that's really well fed. He just had a good meal. And you have some kind of old dog biscuit. And you're asking him to do behavior. And you're going to reinforce it. And he says, I don't like that dog biscuit. I actually don't feel eating at all right now. What would we do in that situation if we want that reinforcement to work? Right? We have to escalate somehow. We have to change. We need to make the dog want the cookie. We need to maybe not feed them for the morning feeding. Maybe give a more interesting treat. Something that actually is going to make the dog respond to. Right? So it's very much the same with the negative reinforcement. And that tone doesn't do the job. If we really want to have negative reinforcement, then we have to have another level of aversive intensity. That's going to say, well, how about now? Would you put your seatbelt now? And you're still fighting with it. And I think you know now where I'm going. That intensity will increase until it convinces you to put the seatbelt on. Imagine positive reinforcement. You have that cookie. You have that lab. And you're telling him sitting. He just goes, thank you very much. I don't need to sit. Not that different than just clipping the seatbelt behind. Your decision to put the seatbelt on, it depends on the level of motivation. Right? And that level of motivation is going to change. And that's the thing with negative reinforcement. That is the thing with any reinforcement and any punishment. Nothing is constant. Like if you, just for the sake of visual, you know, is easy to understand.

Let's say we have from scale 1 to 10 electric color. And I want you to do something or I don't want you to do something. And I can tap level 2, which is you probably need to kind of stop and concentrate to feel something. But you say, wow, okay. I'm not going to do it. Or I will eagerly do. That same behavior tomorrow, or not even tomorrow, maybe in an hour, may require more or less level of intensity. Depending on what? Depending how you feel about it at the moment, how motivated you are. Level of motivation dictates the level of intensity to convince you either to be able to reinforce the behavior or to stop a behavior. Reinforcement and punishment. Right? But it's your motivation or the dogs or the person that's putting the seatbelt on that's going to dictate that. And so there is your problem. Why is it poor analogy, the seatbelt? Because it's a constant. It does not, it cannot escalate more than that little louder tone. And then it ends. On top of that, what else can happen? You can make a shortcut. Exactly. You can get that seatbelt, clip it behind you, and you can neutralize the sound. But actually not perform what's required. Not show the behavior that you should. So that's another poor feature of, you know, if you're reinforcing, you have to be able to actually reinforce the behavior. Because I was originally thinking about this. And even now sometimes it's almost stuck with me and I play with it. And when we're in the car and Natalia will be like, okay, I know what you're doing. Because in the beginning she will like, put your seatbelt on. And I'm like, just not putting it on. And then I wait, I wait, I wait. It goes a little louder, whatever. Then it ends up beeping. And then I just put it on. I mean, I'm just playing games because I'm bored on the road. Right? But it really shows you how it's not the best example. So two problems. Actually more than two problems, but two big problems. One is it stays constant. It doesn't reflect the motivation of the driver or the motivation of the dog. We cannot play with the levels. It's easier to cheat. So when you want to have a good reinforcement, negative reinforcement, you have to be able to control the intensity of the aversive. This is a must. Because sometimes you may need very little or nothing and respond straight to the signal. And sometimes depending on your stubbornness and commitment and motivation not to, it has to reach a level that's going to convince you. And that level is not punishment. That's the big kind of bubble that somebody can get into again with thinking that the low

levels are enforced for reinforcement and the high levels are for punishment. You can punish. Think of how we talk in class. The, you know, a police pulls you over, gives you a warning. Is it a punishment? Of course it is. Some level of intensity. Yeah, it's pretty mild. It's pretty mild. They just told you don't do that again. And you said, okay. But if you decide to disrespect that warning, you will get higher and then you will get higher. And then this will keep going until eventually probably your license gets suspended. And you pay very different price for your insurance, right? Imagine if the police officer always says, hey, don't do that next time. And you're like, yes, officer. Thank you. Thank you. And you go. And then two days later, he stops. He's like, yeah, remember, don't do that. And that goes on. That's kind of how the negative, how the seatbelt thing works. So the level of motivation, again, essential. And it must be talked about when we talk about reinforcement. If we want to explain reinforcement correctly, that seatbelt analogy is very, very poor. Again it doesn't imply any level, being low, being high, being anything in between. It just, it has to do its purpose. It has to serve its purpose and control your behavior. And in that instance, because it is to reinforce, basically it's going to have to convince you to do something that you know what to do. It's not a guess, right? We talk about what negative reinforcement, like one of the most important things, at least in TWC, is what? The easy way out, right? Don't get so quiet. We don't like the dog to struggle. We don't like if you go first time in the car and you have no idea how to put a seatbelt, and that tone is beeping. And eventually, a week later, you figure it out. It's like, wow, okay. You want somebody to show it. Much easier, much nicer, right? So that's another important thing to know about. But yeah, it goes all the way back to Skinner, as I said. He kind of summed it up all in one thing. Oh, it's using aversive reinforcement, punishment. Then, after some time, things change a little bit. But again, even today, it's very widely believed that, not just among dog trainers. This is like I talk with people that, you know, scientists, behaviorists, evolutionary psychologists, psychologists. So it is really widely misunderstood concept. So since the seatbelt analogy is so widely used, you might as well just do it just what I just told you and explain that that's a bad analogy. Now, what will be a good analogy? Any analogy will be good if what are the important pieces.

It has to be able to escape and later avoid. It puts it in a reinforcement category. What else? Overcome the level of motivation. Overcome the level of motivation, right? So that means to control, to convince you, we have to match and actually go above your level of stubbornness and say, no, you have to do that. And once we convince that what happens next is very interesting too, because let's say we need to go from 1 to 10 again on scale, regardless of what the aversive is. But we start with 3 and then we go to 5 and then we go to 7 and it's like, well, okay, I'm going to put the seatbelt on. That doesn't mean that we have to stay on 7. Next time the warning signal comes and it's like, yep, I'm ready, let's go. So that's what negative reinforcement is about. You have to adjust. It's not a constant. So that's really when you, anytime you talk to your pet client or a sport trainer or your whatever, whatever, and it's negative reinforcement discussion, it matches the level of motivation. And it makes you perform, do something. But it doesn't, it never ever should imply a certain level. Like whenever I talk like on social media sometimes and we have some conversation, there is always, I would mention something. And for some reason everybody thinks that, oh, if you're not using low level, that means that you're hammering dogs. Like, no, it really does not mean that. I'm not the one to decide if I am. If the dog doesn't want the cookie, I will offer some different treat. If he doesn't want that treat, maybe I will offer a ball. Maybe he will skip a meal. But I will convince him to want it and make the behavior. And if we have negative reinforcement, and I say, hey, do that, and I make a little pop on the leash, and he's like, no, this is way more important right now. I know what you want, but I'm not going to. Then we meet him and say, no, you really have to. And then we convince him. Okay, I'll do it. And the very next time we ask him, we may not even need to do anything aversive, just the signal, and you have the response. We don't know. It can, this is the thing. It varies. It's not a constant. Yeah? So if you think of any analogy, go ahead. Well, I was just wondering if the car, say, put into the car and drive unless your self is on, would that be negative punishment? Correct. Correct. So you can certainly do that too. Until you put the seatbelt on, the car doesn't go. It's a, now I cannot argue that that's a bad example of negative punishment, because it totally is going to serve the purpose. Assuming that you want to go somewhere, and you're not just playing with the seatbelt, right?

So in that instance, yes, that's correct. Anybody can think of cool example? Maybe we can change altogether the examples. You know, like it's really insane how popular that example is, and how misleading it is. I mean, again, I've talked to so many different people from different, different education and different, you know, things that they do, and you would think that they would know. But you go, you listen to, I don't know, go to, I mean, on YouTube you can find everything, but even if you go to some lectures on reinforcement or operant conditioning most likely, and some college teacher or professor explaining to the class what negative reinforcement is, chances are 99% that you will hear the seatbelt analogy. Or another one will be, well, you have a headache and you take aspirin, or something of that nature, or it's raining and you put an umbrella. Yes, there are more negative reinforcement than the seatbelt, but it's still, like in dog training, the thing with negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement is like we want to have a cue. We want to have a signal. We want the dog to respond. And then we are playing with options how we can reinforce, how we can convince the dog to respond in a certain way without cue. Yeah? So you're going outside and it's raining and you have an umbrella. It doesn't necessarily match as your seat or down or cum. Do you understand how slow that seatbelt thing is? And it really, like if you go to, on YouTube and go operant conditioning lectures, it can be Yale University, it can be anybody, really the chances are that you will hear this analogy. This is how confusing it is. And it's been like this for a very long time. And it's very hard to argue it when you actually think a little bit. How we can improve the seatbelt as a negative reinforcer? What do we need to be able to do? What needs to happen if we're going to improve the seatbelt to really serve not as a warning signal and signpost and half us annoyance, negative reinforcement, that is very easy to override if you want to. How can we make it so it actually really truly is negative reinforcement? Electrify the seat. Electrify the seat. How can we make it so it's on the seat like the red jump? Sure, sure. There was a way back in the 80s when Don't Shoot the Dog, Karen Pryor came with it. She came up with a very cool analogy where you have the car parked and the meter is already expired and the cop comes and blows up the car. It's kind of unreasonable, right? We don't need that. But we can get there. It's just there's got to be levels, something in between, right? It cannot be this and ta-pah!

So we can increase the sound. I mean if it's going to be a sound, let's increase it. Let's go to almost like the soccer maniacs with the horns. Like I'm sure Tesla, Elon can come up with some weird sounds that you are putting that seatbelt on. But there's got to be levels. This is what is important. Like anytime you hear this, you don't need to convince the world otherwise. But when you are working with a client, I think it's your duty to explain how things work. And that as long as the dog understands what is asked from them, it's very different if we're applying contingent and non-contingent aversive. This is almost in all the studies, you know, and the banning electric collars and prong collars and whatever, there is always this, well what happens if the dog cannot make sense of it? It's a bad idea, which there is no need to make a study off of that. It's a bad idea. But there is many bad ideas in the world and we don't, you know, we don't forbid forks because some dumbass just popped himself and, you know. So, how do we make a seatbelt that can escalate but before it blows up the car, we have levels. I've thought of it. You can start with the sound. You can start to make, like the sound can increase this, you can start some low level of electric. You can increase the level of electric. Whatever it is, it has to be unpleasant enough, whatever that is, to the, that particular subject to convince them to respond. So, that intensity never really reflects your mood as a trainer and your frustration. That's bad training, right? We know that. Before the intensity increases, we need to make sure that you understand what you need to do. So, as I said, if you're going to sit in the car and the tone starts and then it keeps going and then it keeps doing all sorts of things, but you have no idea what to do, that will be wrong. That will be very unfair to you, right? So, we have to be certain that either the subject knows what to do, it's instructed and we know that it can, or it's a ref, I cannot say the word now, by reflex. You know, like let's say you're touching something and you feel that little electric impulse, what are you going to do? You're not going to push back harder. You're going to go back. So, in that situation, you do not necessarily need very deep instruction because by reflex you will respond in the way that you, you should be responding. But with the seatbelt, we, yeah, this is what you do. You put your seatbelt on and you explain your why and, and that's the pros, that's the cons.

You decide what you do. But if you want to make a reinforcement, then that's how it's going to go. Now, as, as we, we said, you know, yes, we can really, really escalate, but the level of aversive has to be applied. It has to be a smart level. What are we looking on? You, you mentioned that already. The level of aversive. Safe state of emergency. Safe state of emergency, right? So, the, I, I'll read it to you. The, the ideal emotional state for learning is a state of safe emergency. In other words, there is a high level of attention without the negative impact of anxiety. So, we, you know, we're very purposefully, methodically, without frustration. We're, this is, this is what teaching is, what reinforcement can look like. So, the, the thing I thought of is, if the car had a sensor to detect whether you put in the seatbelt, your insurance company raises up your premium, it raises the price, until you start putting on your seatbelt. Um, and that would, you know, compel you to put on your seatbelt. But it's really good one. That's, that's just priceless. Yeah, the technology is. It's like, oh, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Oh, guess what? Oh, yeah. You feel comfortable talking about it? Because they, you know, like your client will say, hey, I don't want to use this. This is unethical. This is, you know, we're gonna blow up my dog and I love my dog. And you can really, you know, there is a very reasonable place for it sometimes. To, to summarize and close this one, what did we learn? It has to match the intensity of the aversive, has to match the level of motivation. It cannot be constant. Otherwise, it's very poor example of negative reinforcement. And ultimately, I hope you realize the, the beeping tone in the seatbelt serves more the purpose of a warning signal. A reminder, a signpost, done. Negative reinforcement event. Yeah? At this point. Thank you.