Whether you are interested in learning more about positive reinforcement (or R+), or simply looking to expand your equine knowledge, understanding how your horse learns is absolutely crucial to having a successful training relationship with your horse.
Bear with me as we walk through some behavioral science-y stuff - I promise it’s worth it! All training falls under two major conditioning categories - classical or operant. We will focus mainly on operant conditioning which is further broken down into positive or negative reinforcement or punishment.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning refers to the theory proved by Ivan Pavlov and his dogs in the early 1900s which paired a previously neutral stimulus (a bell in this case) with a naturally existing one (salivating for food). It is important to know that classical conditioning is mainly associated with involuntary behaviors and that the stimulus is applied prior to the reaction. We will use classical conditioning to initially set our horses up for positive reinforcement training, but then move into operant conditioning.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning was first described by B.F. Skinner in the mid 1900s after he felt that classical conditioning was too simplistic to explain behavior. Operant conditioning creates associations between voluntary behaviors and consequences. This is the opposite from classical conditioning in that the voluntary behavior happens first and then a stimulus (or consequence) is applied. This method of conditioning works by increasing or decreasing the likelihood of a behavior through the consequences associated with it.
Consequences for behaviors are broken down further into positive or negative and reinforcement or punishment using aversive or appetitive stimuli. I want to be clear that when we’re talking about positive and negative in this context, we should think of the terms like we do in math - we are either adding something (plus), or subtracting something (minus). Neither is inherently “good” or “bad”! Reinforcement then increases the likelihood of a behavior while punishment then decreases it. Aversive stimuli are things our horses don’t like whereas appetitive stimuli are things that our horses do like.
We are mainly taught to ride and train our horses using negative reinforcement, or pressure and release. Going back to our original leg example, we put our leg on the horse and remove it when they move off of it. If we break this down into operant conditioning terms we are teaching them that when they move away from our leg (the voluntary behavior) we will remove it (the consequence - negative and aversive because we are removing something they don’t like and reinforcement because we are working to increase the likelihood of that behavior).
A similar example of using positive reinforcement would be if you are standing next to your horse, they move away from you (the voluntary behavior), and you give them a food reinforcer (the consequence - positive and appetitive because you are adding something they do like and reinforcement because we are again working to increase the likelihood of that behavior).
I’ve put together a handy chart for reference that pulls together the four operant conditioning quadrants with a few horsey examples.
We know from experience that pressure and release works, now you know how it works, and it can certainly be used in a humane, non-escalating way (often referred to as least intrusive, minimally aversive negative reinforcement or LIMA R-). In fact, I am 100% transparent that I still use negative reinforcement as I find that it can sometimes be easier for my horse to understand depending on the task. I also don’t want to scare anyone off who is looking into R+ by thinking that they are doing something inherently wrong or bad by using pressure and release!
But my horse needed something different, and in talking to many other equestrians who have found themselves walking down the R+ horse training path, they also ended up here because of a special horse who pushed them to learn more.
Now before you go running off to try using R+ with your horse using food rewards, I urge you to stay tuned for a future blog post that will cover how to teach food manners before galloping off into the sunset!