Table Scraps

Reinforcing behavior increases the likelihood that the behavior will occur again. For instance, if you tell a dog to sit, and it does, and you give it a treat, the dog will be more likely to sit on command in the future. So it is with humans, as well. If a child is learning to ride a bicycle, and you reinforce the child’s behavior with praise as he learns to ride it, he will be more likely to continue the behaviors that preceded the praise.

Once a behavior is learned, constant reinforcement is unnecessary. Once the dog learns to sit on command, you need not give it a treat every time. And once the child has learned to ride the bicycle, there is no need for constant praise. Indeed, it sounds strange to tell a child, “Great job keeping the bicycle upright,” when he has been riding easily for a long time.

But variable reinforcement can be very powerful. This entails reinforcing behavior unpredictably, and not every single time. For instance, if you have taught a dog to jump on command, you may begin only reinforcing the highest jumps. With humans, gambling is the quintessential example of variable reinforcement. You do not know when you will hit the jackpot, but you keep trying because you know eventually a payoff will come.

That being said, I spend a lot of time thinking about reinforcement in human interaction. I am re-reading a book on operant conditioning, the use of reinforcers to shape behavior, and I came across the following text:

From “Don’t Shoot the Dog,” by Karen Pryor
We have all seen people who inexplicably stick with spouses or lovers who mistreat them. Customarily, we think of this as happening to a woman - she falls for someone who is harsh, inconsiderate, selfish, even cruel, and yet she loves him - but it happens to men, too. Everyone knows such people, who, if divorced or otherwise bereft of the nasty one, go right out and find someone else just like him or her.
Are these people, for deep psychological reasons, perpetual victims? Possibly. But may they not also be victims of long duration variable schedules? If you get into a relationship with someone who is fascinating, charming, sexy, fun, and attentive, and gradually the person becomes more disagreeable, even abusive, though still showing you the good side now and then, you will live for those increasingly rare moments when you are getting all those wonderful reinforcers: the fascinating, charming, sexy, and fun attentiveness. And paradoxically from a commonsense viewpoint, though obviously from the training viewpoint, the rarer and more unpredictable those moments become, the more powerful will be their effect as reinforcers, and the longer your basic behavior will be maintained.

I wish I could explain to others, even to myself, why I stayed in an emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship for far too long. There was some extremely powerful emotional hook that pulled me back into the relationship just when I began to feel I had had enough.

If he had been cruel all the time, it would have been easy to leave. But inconsistently, he was fascinating, charming, and attentive. And so I put up with the cruelty, the lies, the manipulation, and the jealousy in the hopes that next time he would be his old charming self, and I would feel that all was right with the world.

I told him at times that I felt like a dog waiting for table scraps. I would do what he wanted me to do, waiting for him to finally give me the attention that I wanted from him. It was a difficult and very painful relationship.

Sadly, so many of the women in my life have experienced emotionally (and even physically) abusive relationships. But we are so overcome with shame and guilt over having “let” a guy treat us poorly that we do not talk about it. Most people would have no idea that these women had suffered so at the hands of someone cruel and abusive, because we hide our experiences out of shame that there is something wrong with us. It is unfortunate that our society is so quick to judge these women, labeling them perpetual victims or martyrs. And some of them may be, but most of them are strong, intelligent, compassionate women who are looking for the best in others. And they are stuck in the powerful hook of variable reinforcement.

I do not mean to make abusive relationships sound trite or like a cold, unemotional psychological process. There are many issues involved: identity, societal expectations about roles, childhood trauma, grief, brokenness, self-esteem, and so on. It is tragic to me that so many of us suffer in silence and shame rather than dialoguing about these issues in order to promote healing and understanding.