I have a dog training and cat behavior service as a side hustle.
Not because it makes me a ton of money, but because I love animals, have worked with them for years, and because I enjoy helping people understand their pets better. If I can get a few bucks for that, great. The whole business is more for me and the animals.
When I got started training my own pets, I studied clicker training and how to use it, and I absolutely love it. Animals pick the clicker up so fast, and the principles of a reward-based system are incredibly useful.
Clicker training is where I learned the behavior terms “positive reinforcement,” “negative reinforcement,” “positive punishment,” and “negative punishment.” “Positive” and “negative” in behavior connotations are more like the positive and negative used in painting or photography — “negative” doesn’t mean bad, or punishment, it means “goes away” or “empty.” Thus:
“Positive reinforcement” means to reward desired behavior. So something pleasant happens in response to desired behavior. For example, when you tell your dog “sit,” and she does, and you give her a treat.
“Negative reinforcement” means to remove or withhold a reward for unwanted behavior. Something pleasant goes away in response to undesired behavior. For example, if your dog barks when you tell her to sit, you don’t give her a treat, even though she can see it.
“Positive punishment” means to punish unwanted behavior. Something unpleasant happens in response to undesired behavior. For example, if you tell your dog to sit, and she barks instead, you yell at her or hit her.
“Negative punishment” means to remove an ongoing punishment once desired behavior is given. Something unpleasant goes away in response to desired behavior. For example, your dog pulls on the leash, so you jerk on her collar, and when she stops pulling, you stop jerking.
FYI, punishment never works. Neither negative nor positive.
Reinforcement works. Both negative and positive, though positive is more effective. A better response to undesired behavior is to ignore it or ask for a desired behavior that the animal knows and reward that.
You may have noticed that yourself if you have a dog — jerking on their leash never gets them to quit pulling. People say things like “dumb dog!” when it doesn’t work — no, dumb human. What you’re doing isn’t working, maybe try something else?
Here’s why I’m bringing this all up on my writing blog:
People, for whatever reason in our current society, are taught from birth to use punishment. It’s used on us, we’re taught to use it on each other, on our pets, the police and justice system uses it to keep order, it’s used in schools on students, it’s used at businesses to keep employees in line, and we use it on ourselves in our own minds when we think.
It. Doesn’t. Work.
I was wondering why we keep doing that, to each other and to ourselves, when behaviorists teach us that there is a more effective way. I wasn’t looking to answer the world’s problems or anything, just pondering imponderables. And suddenly, something important hit me right between the eyes.
When you don’t sit down to write, because you’re tired, because you don’t feel inspired, because your favorite show is on, because your brain is wrung out, whatever, you are trained to think: “I should be writing. I’m bad at this. I’m not a real writer. If I don’t sit down and get 100 words right now, I can’t have ice cream. Bad writer.”
You know what happens? Nothing. You don’t write, and you don’t get a break you probably need because instead of resting, you’re beating yourself up about not writing. So then the next time you “should” write, you’re tired and stressed before you even begin. So that makes it even harder to get started.
Instead of making you more likely to write, it makes you LESS likely to write.
It kind of sounds like “no ice cream” in my example is negative reinforcement, but reinforcement is all about what the subject actually wants. Some dogs want food only. Some want kind words, or a pat on the head, or a favorite toy, or a minute of play time. Humans can be a little more complicated. What you ACTUALLY want is not ice cream — you want to be proud of yourself. Ice cream is incidental. And in this instance, you’re implementing a negative punishment on yourself — shame — until you go write. Just like a dog on a leash getting yanked on, it doesn’t work. Or if it works one time, it doesn’t feel good, and you say things to yourself like, “Why was that so hard? I must be lazy or stupid or not really want this. Bad writer.” None of which helps you to write the next time.
When you sit down to write for five minutes, and then you give yourself a mental high five and go get some ice cream, you know what happens? You finish the longest book you ever wrote in half the time you ever wrote any other book, that’s what happens. Ask me how I know.
This is important information. We should be taught this all over the place, from the time we’re born. This is how you get your friends, family, kids, pets, and yourself to do the things you want. Ignore or redirect unwanted behavior, reward desired behavior.
Instead what we’re taught is the exact opposite. We’re taught to punish everyone. And then we get all pissy and butt-hurt when we don’t get the results we’re after — from anyone, including ourselves. “Well, I gave them consequences — why aren’t they acting better??”
“Consequences” are punishment.
Punishment. Doesn’t. Work.
This is also information it’s taken me far too much time to put together. I’ve been trying to figure out why I was able to write my longest book in the shortest amount of time. I wrote that book in 2010. Thirteen years ago. I could never figure it out. But I wrote the book so fast because I had just come out of a two-year bout of writer’s block, so ANY writing done felt amazing. It was easy to write for five minutes and be super proud of myself. I’d spent two years not even being able to write one single word. But once writing became commonplace for me again, my old habits of guilting and shaming myself fell back into place. It’s taken so much longer to write any other book — including the ones I wrote after that long one — because I’ve been shaming myself over how long it’s taking. And I only just realized this.
It’s time to retrain my brain back to that reward system.
Come on girl, stop barking and sit!
Good girl!!
