The way to make sure that the dolphin’s response doesn’t decay over time is, paradoxically, to withhold the fish for a while. Give it to the dolphin every third or fifth jump. If you withdraw it entirely, the reinforced behavior will stop, so keep up the reinforcer; just give it irregularly. Now a funny thing happens: the dolphin starts to jump higher in order to get its reward. On some level, it has realized that just showing up isn’t enough; it has to work harder.
If you think you’re a lot smarter than a dolphin, let me ask you this: Has your interest in a woman ever increased after she told you she didn’t want to see you? Have you ever started calling a woman even more after she stops returning your calls in a timely fashion? Have you ever started to put in more hours at work after the regular kudos you were getting stopped? The fact is, people are a lot smarter than dolphins, which is why this technique works even better for them.
To get you started, think of some behaviors involving reinforcement. We are unconsciously using reinforcers all the time in our relationships: praise, enthusiasm, food, presents, backrubs, sex. Anything that makes someone feel good is potentially a positive reinforcer. Become aware of them. Now think of all the ways that you use those reinforcers in a habitual manner, i.e. without thought or variation. Take kissing, for example. Do you kiss her every time you leave for work? Do you kiss her every time you come back? Do you kiss her in the same spot, for the same duration of time? If you do, your kiss no longer conveys any information
Dolphin, Behavioral Psychologists
September 2nd, 2009 — Uncategorized
To optimize survival, the nervous system has evolved to notice change and filter out the background. It happens in all of your five senses: eyes notice moving objects and not static ones; you stop noticing the refrigerator’s hum after a few days; you stop smelling something after five minutes. This is called habituation, and there are mechanisms operating at the cellular level to make this work. In other words, you’re better off understanding it and working with it rather than fighting it. And the proper way to circumvent habituation is to deliberately introduce salient, unpredictable stimulus, better known as change.
There are infinite ways of being unpredictable, but here I want to give you two techniques derived from behavioral psychology and animal training. The first is deliberate unpredictability, especially when it comes to doing nice things for your partner.
Behavioral psychologists and animal trainers call this implementing an irregular schedule of reinforcement. Let’s say you’ve been training a dolphin to jump, and you’ve been rewarding it with a single fish each time. The fish is the reinforcer