{"id":1593,"date":"2012-10-13T16:56:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T06:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=1593"},"modified":"2021-08-02T17:39:12","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T07:09:12","slug":"the-ing-four-quadrants-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/dog-training-dog-behaviour\/the-ing-four-quadrants-dunbar\/","title":{"rendered":"The #@*$ing Four Quadrants (Dunbar)"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See\u00a0index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dunbar has a clear opinion on the four quadrants of operant conditioning: Ditch them!\u00a0 Dunbar feels we have entered into a time of \u2018quadrant worship\u2019 when, in reality, the quadrant was only ever designed to be a memory aid. The quadrants have also led to a division in the dog community, with half the people worshipping positive rewards and negative punishment (i.e. “positive trainers”), and the other half worshipping negative rewards and positive punishment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a little theory:\u00a0 In the quadrants, positive means \u201cyou give\u201d and negative means \u201cnegate\u201d or take away.<\/p>\n

Dunbar used this table to illustrate the quadrants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nStart<\/strong><\/td>\nStop<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Reward<\/strong><\/td>\nPositive Reinforcement<\/td>\nNegative Punishment<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Punish<\/strong><\/td>\nPositive Punishment<\/td>\nNegative Reinforcement<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dunbar thinks this is a complicated way of viewing things.\u00a0 He says that the dog doesn\u2019t assess anything other than \u201cdid the environment get better or worse?\u201d\u00a0 He believes dogs have a binary outlook to life.\u00a0 They see things as good or bad.<\/p>\n

Funnily, the Association of Pet Dog Trainers<\/a>, an association that Dunbar helped form, uses the quadrants and advocates that, first, positive reinforcement should be used to change behaviour, second preference is to negative punishment, third preference is to negative reinforcement, and the last option is using positive punishment.<\/p>\n

Dunbar believes that rewards<\/a> are the first choice (positive reinforcement), like the APDT, but then thinks that mild positive punishment<\/a> (redirecting and instructing<\/a>) is the second port of call.\u00a0 He finds his third choice, of negative reinforcement, \u201cpowerful when done right\u201d, but potentially damaging to the dog.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t find negative punishment useful, and is rarely used in dog training.<\/p>\n

He called negative reinforcement (taking away something bad) and negative punishment (taking away something good) as \u2018misunderstood\u2019 and \u201cdifficult to do both in practice\u201d.\u00a0 The lines between different quadrants, especially when considering negative punishment and negative reinforcement, become blurry and dependent on other quadrants.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

This puppy is receiving positive reinforcement – gaining the reward of tugging! When the tugging stops, then negative punishment will occur. Rarely does one part of the quadrant occur in isolation.<\/p><\/div>\n

Negative punishment is problematic as, before you do the bad (remove something good), you have to have started the good.\u00a0 This means that positive reinforcement (the introduction of something is good) is always tied with negative punishment (the removal of something good). He suggested that all good things in life \u2013 putting on a leash, going on a walk, getting in the car \u2013 are training opportunities and \u2018life rewards\u2019 for the dog.<\/p>\n

Negative reinforcement is removal of something bad\u2026 But the question is, when did the bad start? (As it acted as a punishment when it started.)\u00a0 Dunbar used the example of ear pinch method of training a retrieve (basically, a dog\u2019s ear is pinched until it bites onto the dumbbell, and then the pinch is release when it takes the dumbbell).\u00a0 This method is problematic as when the ear pinch is started, then it is associated with \u2018something\u2019.\u00a0 In theory, if the dog took the dumbbell, and the trainer stopped pinching, then method is effective.\u00a0 But if the dog just screams and the trainer gives up, then the dog has effectively been rewarded for screaming.\u00a0 Or if the dog bites, and the pinch stops, then biting was rewarded.<\/p>\n

Negative reinforcement training methods like this are clearly problematic.\u00a0 Indeed, using pain for training is problematic according to Dunbar.\u00a0 Painful stimuli can ruin a dog\u2019s temperament and should never be used.\u00a0 And negative reinforcement almost always uses pain, torture, stress and pressure.<\/p>\n

Dunbar described two scenarios where he uses negative punishment (taking away something good).\u00a0 In his off lead puppy classes<\/a>, he sometimes will place a bully on a tether (removing them from the good fun of playing.)\u00a0 Dunbar also said he uses negative punishment \u201cwhen the dog starts to blow me off\u201d, which suggests that he removes himself if the dog chooses to disengaged from training (though I am only assuming \u2013 Dunbar didn\u2019t get into details about that).<\/p>\n

Another criticism of the quadrants is the diagrammatic illustration of equality \u2013 the quadrants are not equal in terms of merit, their usefulness, or anything else. It\u2019s just a diagram!<\/p>\n

Basically, Dunbar praised dog trainers for \u2018these days\u2019 having a solid theoretical knowledge, but, for the most part, thinks it\u2019s rather irrelevant in dog training.\u00a0 To quote his handout, “nothing holds trainers back more than endless theoretical discussion of our iconic Quadrant.”\u00a0 Our next post from the Dunbar series will consider his criticisms of learning theory.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Past relevant blog post: McGreevy’s Thoughts on Operant Conditioning<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

External link:\u00a0\u00a0Roger Abrantes’ post on “Unveiling the myth of reinforcers and punishers<\/a>”\u00a0<\/em>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dunbar doesn’t like the four quadrants of operant conditioning. The quadrants are theory and not highly applicable to real life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[254],"tags":[12,164,11,376,375,488,445,492,240,490,491,252,489,255,245],"class_list":["post-1593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-training-dog-behaviour","tag-dog","tag-dog-training","tag-dogs","tag-dunbar","tag-ian-dunbar","tag-learning-theory","tag-negative-punishment","tag-negative-reinforcement","tag-operant-conditioning","tag-positive-punishment","tag-positive-reinforcement","tag-punishment","tag-quadrants","tag-reinforcement","tag-reward"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4415,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions\/4415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}