[YorkieMother]

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A more accurate depiction of the relationship between the principles of operant conditioning and clicker training begins with the image of a pie. In clicker training, positive reinforcement is the largest piece, taking up perhaps two-thirds of the pie. The second largest piece is extinction. The third largest is negative punishment. Positive punishment and negative reinforcement are just two tiny slivers. The most important thing to note is that a complete, reliable training program can be composed entirely of positive reinforcement, extinction, and, to a far lesser extent, negative punishment.

Is it important to know these definitions? Yes, for two reasons.

First, it helps us understand each other much better. In everyday usage, the words “positive” and “negative” often mean good and bad. However, in operant conditioning and clicker training, they refer to something added or something taken away. “Punishment” is another word that carries strong connotations in everyday language, but in the context of operant conditioning, punishment means only that which suppresses the occurrence of a behavior.

Second, to clicker train without understanding the science makes clicker training nothing more than a cookbook full of recipes that may or may not work for your dog. Why? Because if you don’t understand the underlying behavioral principles, you can’t examine a training situation, determine why it is—or, more importantly, isn’t—working, and adjust for your particular dog.

Subset, Not Synonymous
Operant conditioning is based on five main principles, and all five are legitimate methods of changing behavior. Clicker training, however, does not make use of all five principles.

Karen Pryor, who coined the term “clicker training,” defines clicker training as a subset of the principles of operant conditioning, including only positive reinforcement, extinction, and to a much lesser extent, negative punishment. The late Marian Breland Bailey, who, with her first husband, Keller Breland, brought operant conditioning out of the laboratory and pioneered and perfected the use of event markers in training, supported this definition.

Negative reinforcement and positive punishment, though sometimes effective for changing behavior, have several possible drawbacks.

They are difficult to apply correctly.
They may have unexpected side effects, including fear and aggression.
They generalize easily—but often inappropriately.
They generally rely on fear, pain, or intimidation.
They inhibit the animal's willingness to offer behavior.
This last issue - inhibiting the animal's willingness to offer behavior - makes positive punishment and negative reinforcement most incompatible with clicker training. Clicker training can produce incredibly precise behaviors, but shaping these behaviors depends upon the dog's willingness to experiment, to offer a variety of responses, some right, some wrong. A dog that is punished for mistakes isn't going to be anxious to try anything new.

Trainers who are new to clicker training often balk at the thought of giving up positive punishment and negative reinforcement. They equate the lack of physical aversives with the lack of consequences. It’s important to realize that no study anywhere has ever determined that positive punishment (or reinforcement) is inherently more effective than negative punishment (or reinforcement). By definition, all are effective, and within each is a continuum from mild to extreme. Reliability is also not an issue. Reliability is not related to method—it is a number, cold data, a percentage of correct trials. In upcoming issues I’ll explain more about how to apply clicker training as defined in this article to get precise, reliable behaviors, but first, in the next issue, I’ll debunk some common myths about clicker training.

Melissa Alexander
mca @ clickersolutions.com
copyright 2002 Melissa Alexander