I have an early memory of being in our cold, grey garage. I’m with my stepfather and he’s yelling at our dog. Pip pooped in the garage, and KD is rubbing his nose in the poop, repeating “Bad dog, Bad dog.”
KD loved animals more than he liked people. He was usually very calm and very kind. He wasn’t a bad guy. He had just learned a technique of dog training that is no longer in style: Negative Reinforcement. It’s no longer in style because it ends up teaching the wrong thing. In this case that’s
“He is willing to hurt me”
instead of
“I should poop outside”
When I read John Yates’ mediation manual, The Mind Illuminated, I learned another flaw negative reinforcement that I had been personally experiencing for decades.
A common mediation technique is to focus your attention on some object. Of course, the mind is the mind, and it inevitably gets distracted and then continues to wander. At some point there is a Moment of Awareness: “Wait! I’m wandering!”, after which the meditator has an opportunity to return their attention to the initial object.
What I had been doing for years is saying some version of “Bad dog!” to myself in that moment. According to Yates, that behavior actually lessens the likelihood I will have a Moment of Awareness, because it associates the Awareness with the Negativity. Which is the opposite of what we’re going for in meditation!
So how does this help us with getting the most out of our conflicts?
My friend Christina made it really clear to me a few years ago through showing me how chickens are clicker trained. I highly recommend watching this 5 minute video to get a sense of exactly when and how this type of reinforcement works:
https://www.facebook.com/TwoCreativeChicks/videos/clicker-training-a-chicken/1113554345437101/
(There’s also ethical considerations.)
I suggest this as a base-level pattern when interacting with yourself and everybody else.
This doesn’t mean rewarding shitty behavior. The idea is NOT to give the dog treats for pooping in the wrong place, self-congratulate yourself for mind-wandering, or compliment racist jokes.
The idea is to find the behaviors worth reinforcing and focus on those. Reward what you appreciate and they (you) will naturally want to do more of it.
Ankur Shah Delight: Community and Conflict 