“Hold up, did I read that right? Using dog training on people? You’ve got to be nuts.”
Okay, so this definitely isn’t the first time I’ve heard this, and it probably won’t be the last, but what you may not realize is many of the things people do are not automatically ingrained into their system.
Achoo!
Bless you.
Thank you.
Oh goodness, did you see that?
Saying “bless you” in reaction to a sneeze is an example of a shaped behavior, or Operant Conditioning, and is actually the basis of many dog training techniques. What may surprise you is that it works on people too!
Don’t believe me? Ask The Office for a rather amusing piece.
Now it may seem rather silly for this to work if you follow the Office video as an example, but let’s think about it from another view.
1. The first step of operant conditioning and behavior shaping is to identify and mark a desired behavior.
In my sophomore year of high school, an economics teacher wanted to see if I could train his students to perform a simple behavior after overhearing a conversation about dog training. After laughing over it, we chose the simple behavior of taking an offered item, and eventually wanted the reaction to become automatic. No matter what was offered, the student was to take it without question from me.
2. Establish a reward for offering the behavior, and a negative consequence for not offering the action.
Chips were like gold in my high school. If you had Nacho Doritos, you were a god. If someone gave you a chip, you were the envy of all the other classmates and got to relish in your glorious chip-ownership. If you didn’t get a Doritos chip, you sat at your chip-less desk staring hungrily at the chip hoarder without shame despite eating a full meal not five minutes prior, hating the lucky fool that managed to procure one. My class with this teacher was right after lunch so it was easy to get the needed materials, and students knew being chip-less was a terrible fate in a food-deprived classroom.
3. Trigger the behavior, and reward.
Can you hold this for a moment?
The target student didn’t think much of it, mindlessly reaching for the opened bag of chips. My untied shoe laces were a good visual cue as to why they needed to hold such a precious commodity as it would be blasphemy for any chip-loss. While we waited for my teacher to unlock the door to his classroom, I tied my shoes.
Ah, thanks! You can have some if you want, I’m sort of full.
Suddenly the one holding the bag tried to subtly move the precious cargo close to their chest to guard it, eyes bright with anticipation as they waited for me to stand up properly. Meanwhile, 23 pairs of hungry eyes around us turned green with envy, boring holes into our backs like starving hounds.
4. Reinforce the behavior
I was very consistent with this, and for two weeks straight someone got to share chips with me. The first few days, it was the same person, but by the end of the first week two others had caught on. By the end of two weeks, everyone wanted to be my best friend and would clamor to hover by my side at the beginning of class.
5. Introduce new cues, and remove the verbal cue
The chips were now hidden in my backpack, and now I had a half-finished soda. This was offered as well to be taken, and the cycle repeated. They got to share chips with me when inside the class and maybe even the soda if I knew them well enough. Book bags, binders, pencils, papers, hacky-sacks—the items became randomized, and sometimes I didn’t have chips with me, but next time I saw them I would give them something. They were taken without being verbally prompted.
One of my friends was clued in and the game would trade off between her and me. She had sweet-tart candies, and the game suddenly expanded, their focus widened not just on myself. By adding people in on the game, they began looking for ways to help people in hopes of a reward of some sort. It was a wonderful way of establishing good habits and favored behaviors.
6. Remove the physical reward, replace with praise.
Wait, something doesn’t seem right…
This action of taking things from others when prompted had become routine enough where it was automatic and almost mindless in a way. They were no longer bothered by the wait of holding something, and would continue conversations easily. Fingers took things politely when offered and it became second nature, just as one would breathe air, and hand them back without question.
No more chips, and lots of thanks later, students were baffled when conversations stopped and they noticed things in their hands they did not originally come to class with. To say the least, my teacher was pleased at being able to hand out papers and homework in peace during in-class work assignments for the rest of the year without hearing the moans of complaint. Confused students would notice papers in their hands a few minutes later. I heard some wonder if our teacher was bewitched in some manner, or had some secret psychic skill they weren’t aware of.
I had proved my point and my teacher began prodding others about the possibility of training people…but that’s for another time.
Interesting reads:
Operant Conditioning in the Classroom
Differences in Positive and Negative Reinforcement
A Pawsitive World 