No is not the opposite of Yes

The psychology of learning defines learning in a very broad sense — change in behaviour as a result of experience. The theoretical as well as the experimental basis of the psychology of learning is based on understanding how the interactions between an individual and his environment brings about changes in the way he behaves.

Like any other scientific field the psychology of learning has its methods and tools. Early research in this field involved researchers trying to understand simple learning situations. We all know the famous experiment that Ivan Pavlov devised — a bell would be rung right before food was served to the now famous dog. This led to the dog associating food (UCS — unconditioned stimulus) with the sound of the bell (CS — conditioned stimulus). Over a period of time the dog would salivate (CR — conditioned response) as soon as the bell was rung. A variety of similar experiments were conducted to understand the fundamental constructs of learning.

Edward Thorndike was the first to apply psychological principles to the area of learning. His research led to many theories and laws of learning. He wrote his seminal ‘Law of Effect’ as an outcome of some of the earliest experiments in this field. The first part of the law states -

“Acts followed by a state of affairs which the individual does not avoid, and which he often tries to preserve or attain, are selected or fixated.” In simple terms, acts that lead to favorable or likeable outcomes are learned, adopted, and repeated by the individual.

Thorndike included the obvious corollary to this statement as part of his law — “Acts followed by states of affairs which the individual avoids or attempts to change, are eliminated.” In simple terms, acts that lead to unfavourable or unlikeable outcomes are unlearned and not repeated. Such states of affairs or annoyers, were regarded to have an opposite effect to the satisfiers. Sounds quite straightforward, annoyers are opposite to satisfiers, no is the opposite of yes, or is it?

Here’s the twist — Thorndike himself rejected this statement later. As part of another experiment he devised, he observed that choices ‘punished’ in this way tended, if anything, to occur more frequently in subsequent repetitions! Subsequent experiments have also substantiated this observation — punishment can decrease the frequency of a learned response but does not bring about a reversal in learning. The way I read this — habits (good or bad) once learnt are extremely difficult to undo with punishment.

What happens if the punishment is continuous or we increase the severity of the punishment?

Here’s an experiment that can shed some light on that — Burrhus Frederic Skinner (American psychologist who further developed Thorndike’s work on behaviorism) devised a box (later known as the Skinner box) which had a lever that trapped rats could press to escape. If rats who have learnt to press a lever to get out of the Skinner box are given an electric shock after pressing the lever they ignore the shock upto a certain severity, at sufficiently high severity their quest for freedom can be suppressed for a while but it reemerges. So the punishment had to be continuous and escalating in severity for continued suppression of the response. But, the scientists observed that this kind of continuous punishment or increasing severity can lead to complete withdrawal from normal activity and required special therapeutic measures to bring the animal back to its normal behavior. A similar experiment corroborates the previous one. Scientists trained animals to press a lever to get to food. Later on they introduced an electric shock when the animals tried to press the lever but the punishment (electric shock) was effectively discounted. The animals would consistently brave the electric shock to get to the food.

I am going to introduce a nuance at this point, stick with me. Punishment means presenting an unpleasant outcome. We saw ample proof for the argument that introducing punishment to avoid acts does not work. Learned responses (habits) can be suppressed with punishment but not unlearnt. But, and here’s the aha moment, experiments show that acts that lead to cessation of unpleasant stimulation are learnt and retained for a long time. Go back and read that again if you didn’t catch that the first time around. Thus a rat cannot be shocked into giving up its food or freedom but it can be easily taught to press a button to turn off the shock. What’s even more fascinating is the rat doesn’t need a reminder. In an experiment, a bell was rung right before food was served to the rats. After the rats learnt to respond to the bell, a mild shock was introduced along with the food. There was a button in the cage that could turn the shock off. After getting shocked a few times, the rats discovered they could stop the shock by pressing the button. They also learnt to preempt the shock by pressing the button. Even when the shock circuit was removed completely, the rats continued to press the button to avoid any chance of a shock.

Reinforcement by removing or stopping unpleasant stimulations was termed as negative reinforcement by Skinner. We tend to use negative reinforcement as synonymous with punishment and maybe that is why we believe the opposite of yes is no! This learning process is called escape learning. Though, at first glance, it seems to work similar to positive reinforcement there is a critical caveat. Negative reinforcement and escape learning works only for developing simple behavioral patterns.

Most spouses will tell you negative reinforcement has limited success. Here’s a scenario that some of you will find familiar -

Unpleasant stimulation — constant nagging

Cessation lever — take out the trash

Looks like a textbook case for escape learning and yet the individual doesn’t seem to learn or retain. Most definitely doesn’t manage to escape either.

On a more serious note, watching our kids learn and grow is a fascinating process. Pavlov, Thorndike, Skinner and others didn’t make a lot of sense to me till I started observing how my kids learn, how they respond to instruction and authority, and how they develop lasting behavioral patterns. My elder one is respectful, well behaved but reticent. She never ate dirt or chewed on her toys, she never wrote on the walls, and she never tore a book. The younger one is a brat. She eats ants and other insects unless stopped, she bites when she’s angry and she bites when she’s happy, she shouts and screams at the drop of a hat. They are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. The elder one will stop and correct course as soon as we tell her to while the younger one will scream, stomp and throw a hissy fit. But, I’ve recently started observing how we have to remind the elder one all the time. Because she would temporarily correct her behavior when nudged we figured it was working but maybe it wasn’t. Did the unpleasant outcome/punishment only repress the behavior pattern and not eliminate it? The younger one has been a different challenge. Her defiance has forced us into adopting a different strategy. We started inculcating alternate habits rather than trying to stop or correct the wrong ones. We realized no is not the opposite of yes. I’ll let you know how things turn out.