Our dogs learn in the same way that every animal learns, with the added advantage of being able to understand the desires of their human cohabitants. (Ha, 2019)
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is a type of learning that occurs based on the associated rewards and punishments for behavior. There are four forms of operant learning, but their labels are confusing. In these forms, positive and negative don’t apply to good or bad, but rather connotate whether something is added or removed from the learning process.
- The first form of operant conditioning is called positive reinforcement. In this form, your dog performs a desirable behavior and you reward it. The reward is added to the process. The result will be that this behavior is more likely to occur.
- The second form is called positive punishment. Your dog performs an undesirable behavior, and you add punishment to the process. The result will be that this behavior is less likely to occur.
- The third is negative reinforcement. In this form, the dog performs a desirable behavior, and you take something undesirable away. The result will be that this behavior is more likely to occur.
- Finally, the last form of operant learning is negative punishment. In this case, a positive reward is removed from the process. The result will be that this behavior is less likely to occur.
So, if you want a behavior to occur more frequently, your options are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. If you want a behavior to occur less, your options are positive punishment and negative punishment. I will provide examples of each.
- Positive reinforcement – Your dog sits when you cue her to, so you reward her.
- Positive punishment – Your dog doesn’t come to you the first time you call him, so you sternly adjust your tone and posture and repeat the cue. He still doesn’t come, so you walk briskly to his location, attach a leash to his collar, and guide him to back to where you had originally recalled him from.
- Negative reinforcement – Before you release your dog from his kennel, you cue him to sit. When he sits, you open the kennel door and let him out.
- Negative punishment – You initially train your dog to sit by giving her a reward. After your dog has been trained to sit on cue, you stop giving her a reward for it.
