Pet Forum / Miscellaneous / Pet Loss / July 2008

I trains'em as I sees'em.

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A. S. Neill, The Famous Founder of The Summerhill
School, Used To Cure Delinquent Children Way Back
In The 1950's By Paying Them For Every Time They
Wet The Bed Or Broke A Pane Of Glass And Their
Behaviour Would Stop, - As If By MAGICK!

The Embry Study:
"While some may find it strange that reprimands
might increase the chances of a child going into
the street, the literature on the experimental analysis
of behavior is replete with examples of how "attention
to inappropriate behavior" increases the chances of
more inappropriate behavior.

Thus, suggestions to parents that they talk to or reason
with their children about dashing into the street will
likely to have the opposite impact.

Reprimands do not punish unsafe behavior; they reward it."

Source:

"Reducing the Risk of Pedestrian Accidents to
Preschoolers by Parent Training and Symbolic
Modeling for Children: An Experimental Analysis
in the Natural Environment. Research Report
Number 2 of the Safe-Playing Project."

"The IMBECILITY of some of the claims for operant
technique simply take the breath away. Lovas et al
(1966) report a standard contingent reward/punishment
procedure developing imitative speech in two severly
disturbed non verbal schizophrenic boys. After twenty-
six days the boys are reported to have been learning
new words with alacrity. HOWEver, when REWARDS
were moved to a delayed contingency the behavior and
learning immediately deteriorated.

Programs utilizing the "contingencies of reinforcement
model" proposed by Skinner (1963) are no more well
established in research than the various dynamic
therapists."

Research in four areas : 1) direct evaluation of
programmed systems for learning; 2) reinforcement;
3) cognitive dissonance; and 4) motivation, MOST
SURELY DEMOLISH the claims of operant programers."

"It is NO WONDER that the marked changes in
deviant behavior of children can be achieved
through brief, simple educative routines with
their mothers which modify the mother's social
behaviors shaping the child (Whaler, 1966).

Some clinics have reported ELIMINATION of the
need for child THERAPY through changing the
clinical emphasis from clinical to parental
HANDLING of the child (Szrynski 1965).

A large number of cases improved sufficiently after
preliminary contact with parents that NO treatment
of children was required, and almost ALL cases
SHOWE a remarkably shortened period for therapy.
Quite severe cases of anorexia nervosa have been
treated in own to five months by simply REPLACING
the parents temporarily with EFFUSIVELY LOVING
SUBSTITUTES (Groen, 1966)."

B.F. Skinner: Re-evaluation of Punishment:
Punishment, unfortunately traditionally overused,
actually has been proven not effective at long-
term behavioral change, and creatures will find
other ways of getting what it wants. In "Freedom
and the control of men" American Scholar, Winter
1955-56, 25, 47-65. 1956 he states:

If we no longer resort to torture in what we call
the civilized world, we nevertheless still make
extensive use of punitive techniques in both
domestic and foreign relations. And apparently for
good reasons. Nature if not God has created man
in such a way that he can be controlled punitively.

People quickly become skillful punishers (if not,
thereby, skillful controllers), whereas alternative
positive measures are not easily learned.

The need for punishment seems to have the support
of history, and alternative practices threaten the
cherished values of freedom and dignity.

Fear involved with punishment causes frustration:
with typical results loathing, hostility and apathy.
Skinner's teaching on the superiority of posittive
reinforcement's benefits for keeping desired behavior
have proved very valuable.

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"Despite Skinner's clear denunciation of "negative
reinforcement" (1958) NEARLY EVER LEARNING
THEORY model involves the USE OF PUNISHMENT.
Of curse, Skinner has never to my knowledge, demonstrated
HOWE we escape the phenomenon that an expected
reward not received is experienced as a punishment
and can produce extensive and persistent aggression
(Azrin et al, 1966)."

     "Motivation Of The Resistance To Coercion "-- PAVLOV:

"Reflexes of purpose and freedom" in the comparative
physiology of higher nervous activity, Institute of
Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Academy
of Sciences, Moscow:

The most complex unconditioned "reflexes of aim and
freedom," discovered by I.P. Pavlov, are compared
with the "competence drive" and the "motivation of the
resistance to coercion," respectively, described by
contemporary ethologists.

On the basis of the unconditioned "reflex of purpose,"
conditioned reflexes were developed in which positive
emotions arising in connection with the perfection of
a skill, irrespective of its pragmatic significance at
a given moment, serve as the reinforcement.

The unconditioned "reflex of freedom" is regarded as a
phylogenetic precursor of the will, and its acute extinction
as the physiological mechanism of hypnosis. It was
demonstrated experimentally that the appearance of the
state of "animal hypnosis" (immobilization catatonia) in
rabbits is accompanied by the predominance of electrical
activity and heat production in the right hemisphere, i.e.,
by symptoms which are found in hypnosis in man.

Simonov PV</h4>
Publication Types:<ul><li>Review</li><li>Review,
tutorial</li></ul>PMID: 2215892, UI: 91015681</blockquote>
<doctype>

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?uid=2215892&am
p;form=6&amp;db=m&amp;Dopt=bNeurosciBehavPhysiol1990May-Jun;
20(3):230-5

"...all the highest nervous activity, as it manifests
itself in the conditional reflex, consists of a continual
change of these three fundamental processes -- excitation,
inhibition and disinhibition," Ivan P. Pavlov

In the followin SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH STUDY you may
substitute pronged spiked pinch or slip choke collars for shock
and add PUNISHMENT, SCOLDING, CRATING, and offering
and witholding rewards, attention, and affection:

Psychological Effects

At issue is the question, --Do electronic training
devices elicit psychological responses?

"This section cites several research studies in which the
psychological impact of the use of electronic training devices
was analyzed. It is difficult, at best, for anyone to determine
the full psychological effect of these devices or training methods
until we can agree on exactly what constitutes a stress signal in
a domestic dog. Not only do none of the researchers agree on
what it is, but it varies from dog to dog.

It is even more difficult for humans to determine the full effect
of shock on a dog (or any animal) due to the animal's hard-wired
need to hide pain in order to survive in the wild.

Training dogs with the help of the shock collar: Short and long
term behavioral effects. (Schilder, M. & van der Borga, J. (2004).
Applied Animal Behavior Science, 85, 319-334).

The goal of this study was to determine the behavioral changes in
dogs during training using electronic training collars. Thirty-two
dogs were divided into two groups, each receiving both general
obedience and protection training.

One group was trained with shock collars and the other group
without shock collars. The dogs trained with the shock collars
displayed signs of stress: lowering of body posture, high-pitched
yelps, barks and squeals, avoidance, redirected aggression, and
tongue flicking.

It was also noted by the authors that, even during play and relaxed
walking, the group of dogs trained with shock collars continued to
show signs of stress while in the company of their handler.

The authors concluded that shock-collar training is stressful;
receiving shocks is a painful experience to dogs; and the shock
group of dogs evidently learned that the presence of their owner
(or his commands) announced the reception of shocks, even
outside of the normal training context.

They suggest that the welfare of these shocked dogs is at
stake, at least in the presence of their owners.

This study has come under considerable fire because the experience
of the handlers and dogs is not clear, and the level of shock is not
stated. With that said, it does suggest that dogs are stressed by the
experience of being shocked during training.

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