Gone to The Dogs

Demonstrate your knowledge of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, extinction, and behavior shaping.

Positive reinforcement is the process by making a behavior stronger by presenting something that is pleasing, for example dogs love to have their ears scratched but if the dog is being naughty you really do not watch to scratch their ears or they will keep behaving badly. My friends have a very active Boston terrier named Chili Dog Happy and she can be really crazy at times and with me she knows she can get away with things that she cannot with her mom. For example, she sat behind me on the couch and pulled my hair with her mouth and I told her mom, I asked, “What do you do when she does that to you?” She just said, Chili Dog and then I knew she did it because she could get away with it. They took her to obedience training and she was still naughty so because the behavior was repeated by her and not corrected she still gets away with murder, but she is one of the sweetest dogs I know.

Thomas Beitz wrote an article that I found on his website Academy for Puppies and Dogs called Operant Conditioning, he explains that people and animals learn that their behaviors have consequences and in his article he focuses on positive reinforcement (Beitz, 2011).  I like his sense of humor because he starts talking about the next time you see a cute puppy maybe the dog is thinking, ““How does my behavior affect what happens to me?”  Dogs think about when they will get their next treat, dog bone or go for a walk but they have to be taught about being good. They can tell from our facial expression or tone if we are happy with them or not and we must reward them for good behavior such as sitting when we ask but we have to be quick with the reward if we delay they may think they are getting a reward for something else, so we have to pay attention during the lesson, not just the dog (Beitz, 2011).

Negative reinforcement is the process of strengthening a behavior by withdrawing something displeasing, in our textbook the example is when a sergeant yells for his recruit to get up out of bed, to show respect you have to do what he say’s because the recruit cannot sleep while being yelled at (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009). That must be startling at first because the recruit does not know when it is going to happen he just knows it is out of bed for him or he will be in trouble. After time, maybe the recruit will be up before the sergeant gets to his bunk but this negative yelling will help strengthen the recruit’s behavior and make him disciplined.

In our book is the weakening of a behavior such as being late for work, swearing to a boss or being disruptive to others at work, in our textbook someone gets to do a dirty job like washing a floor or the break room for a week to make this person want to not repeat the behavior. Nobody wants to wash the floor or the break room for a week but if the person who gets the job is because they either destroyed property then that person is likely to remember how it felt cleaning up after everyone else. Not something that I would do twice knowing what the outcome would be.

Extinction is when you ignore the behavior and making sure the reaction is not reinforced, in our book we have an example given to us about an ex boyfriend or girlfriend calling us, to make it stop happening that person can ignore their calls and that person will eventually get the hint (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009). I would feel bad if I ignored someone’s phone call and I had to do this a few times because I recognized the number of the person calling, he called me on the weekend and the number was withheld so I could not tell who was calling. I took the more direct approach after he called me a few times and I had to let him know I was not interested (it is complicated) so I am not just being hard on him.

Shaping is the last phase in Skinner’s Operant Conditioning Model this means that when a manager is working with someone who needs to “fine tune their skills,” they can work very closely together to help reinforce the target behavior (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2009). Some people will shadow their managers to learn new skills and praise and recognition take very little time to give and over time the employee will feel really great about the type of work they are doing. It is always great when someone who has trouble learning all at once can take certain steps and then really be great at that one thing; a sense of improvement is great to be recognized by a manager.

Beitz, T. (2011, Decemeber 8). Operant conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.smartdogtrainer.com/operant-conditioning.htm

Kinicki, A., & Kreitner, R.  (2009). Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills &  Best Practices (customized 4th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.