<p>The passage. I wouldn’t have posted it (since its copyrighted) but there’s a pdf so… not really sure where it ends so yeah…</p>
<p>I first learned about training with positive reinforcement in Hawaii, where in 1963 I signed on as head
dolphin trainer at an oceanarium, Sea Life Park. I had trained dogs and horses by traditional methods, but
dolphins were a different proposition; you cannot use a leash or a bridle or even your fist on an animal that
just swims away. Positive reinforcers—primarily a bucket of fish—were the only tools we had.
A psychologist outlined for me the principles of training by reinforcement. The art of applying those
principles I learned from working with the dolphins. Schooled as a biologist, and with a lifelong interest in
animal behavior, I found myself fascinated, not so much with the dolphins as with what could be
communicated between us—from me to the animal and from the animal to me—during this kind of training. I
applied what I’d learned from dolphin training to the training of other animals. And I began to notice some
applications of the system creeping into my daily life. For example, I stopped yelling at my kids, because I
was noticing that yelling didn’t work. Watching for behavior I liked, and reinforcing it when it occurred,
worked a lot better and kept the peace too.
There is a solid body of scientific theory underlying the lessons I learned from dolphin training. We shall
go considerably beyond theory in this book, since as far as I know, the rules for applying these theories are
largely undescribed by science and in my opinion often misapplied by scientists. But the fundamental laws
are well established and must be taken into account when training.
The study of this body of theory is variously known as behavior modification, reinforcement theory,
operant conditioning, behaviorism, behavioral psychology, and behavior analysis: the branch of psychology
largely credited to Harvard professor B. E Skinner.
I know of no other modern body of scientific information that has been so vilified, misunderstood,
misinterpreted, overinterpreted, and misused. The very name of Skinner arouses ire in those who champion
“free will” as a characteristic that separates man from beast. To people schooled in the humanistic tradition,
the manipulation of human behavior by some sort of conscious technique seems incorrigibly wicked, in spite
of the obvious fact that we all go around trying to manipulate one another’s behavior all the time, by whatever
means come to hand.
While humanists have been attacking behaviorism and Skinner himself with a fervor that used to be
reserved for religious heresies, behaviorism has swelled into a huge branch of psychology, with university
departments, clinical practitioners, professional journals, international congresses, graduate studies programs,
doctrines, schisms, and masses and masses of literature.
And there have been benefits. Some disorders—autism, for example—seem to respond to shaping and
reinforcement as to no other treatment. Many individual therapists have been extremely successful in solving
the emotional problems of patients by using behavioral techniques. The effectiveness, at least in some
circumstances, of simply altering behavior rather than delving into its origins has contributed to the rise of
family therapy, in which every family member’s behavior is looked at, not just the behavior of the one who
seems most obviously in distress. This makes eminent good sense.
Teaching machines and programmed textbooks derived from Skinnerian theory were early attempts to
shape learning step by step and to reinforce the student for correct responses. These early mechanisms were
clumsy but led directly to CAI, Computer-Assisted Instruction, which is great fun because of the amusing
nature of the reinforcers (fireworks, dancing robots) and highly effective because of the computer’s perfect
timing. Reinforcement programs using tokens or chits that can be accumulated and traded for candy,
cigarettes, or privileges have been established in mental hospitals and other institutions. Self-training
programs for weight control and other habit changes abound. Effective educational systems based on
principles of shaping and reinforcement, such as Precision Teaching and Direct Instruction, are making
inroads in our schools. And biofeedback is an interesting application of reinforcement to training of
physiological responses.
Academicians have studied the most minute aspects of conditioning. One finding shows, for example, that
if you make a chart to keep track of your progress in some self-training program, you will be more likely tomaintain new habits if you solidly fill in a little square every day on the chart, rather than just putting a check
mark in the square.
This absorption with detail has valid psychological purposes, but one does not often find much good
training in it. Training is a loop, a two-way communication in which an event at one end of the loop changes
events at the other, exactly like a cybernetic feedback system; yet many psychologists treat their work as
something they do to a subject, not with the subject. To a real trainer, the idiosyncratic and unexpected
responses any subject can give are the most interesting and potentially the most fruitful events in the training
process; yet almost all experimental work is designed to ignore or minimize individualistic responses.
Devising methods for what Skinner named shaping, the progressive changing of behavior, and carrying out
those methods, is a creative process. Yet the psychological literature abounds with shaping programs that are
so unimaginative, not to say ham-handed, that they constitute in my opinion cruel and unusual punishment.
Take, for example, in one recent journal, a treatment for bed-wetting that involved not only putting “wetness”
sensors in the child’s bed but having the therapist spend the night with the child! The authors had the grace to
say apologetically that it was rather expensive for the family. How about the expense to the child’s psyche?
This kind of “behavioral” solution is like trying to kill flies with a shovel</p>
<p>All in all, I do believe it is both reflection and substantial.</p>