Managing Behavior with
Positive Reinforcement

by Bonie Jay and Anne Eilers
Winter 2003

Introduction :: Target Behaviors :: Extinction :: Analysis :: Positive and Negative Reinforcement :: Analysis

Introduction

Bonnie Jay and Anne Eilers are both students of Dr. Susan Friedman, Ph.D., who has developed an online course geared specifically toward living with parrots. Dr. Friedman is also a faculty member in the Departments of Psychology and Special Education at Utah State University. Her area of expertise is learning and behavior.

Dr. Friedman's course is entitled: Living and Learning with Parrots: The Fundamental Principles of Behavior. Its philosophy incorporates the following idea: "There are two general sources of behavior that all animals have in common. They are:

1. inherited behaviors guided by the influence of genes and evolution
2. learned behaviors guided by the influence of teachers and the
environment.

These two sources of behavior interact together in untold and inextricable ways, however it is the second source of behavior that is the focus of a course, namely teaching and learning.

With a deeper understanding of the processes that influence behavior and associated teaching strategies, you will be better able to build and
maintain a successful relationship with your feathered companions
proactively rather than reactively."

Re Bonnie and Anne plan to share what they have learned and describe through examples how these learnings can be applied in your own similar circumstances.

Behavior Reinforcement as a Training Method

In this article, we address two different scenarios both having similar ‘target behaviors’.

Target Behaviors

A Target Behavior is defined as a behavior that the caregiver of the bird wants to increase or decrease. For instance, a bird may have the annoying behavior of screaming, the screaming would be the Target Behavior that the caregiver wants to decrease. Similarly the bird may exhibit a desirable behavior like singing, which the caregiver feels would enhance the bird’s enjoyment, and therefore wants to reinforce. That behavior, the singing, would be the Target Behavior the caregiver wants to increase.

Each and every individual, whether bird or human will react in its own unique way to a stimulus. The reaction will depend on the innate species characteristics, past personal experiences, and their current environment.

Extinction

Our first example is of Rose, her Goffins cockatoo, Sparky, and the process of Extinction. Extinction is the removal of reinforcement to decrease an unwanted behavior.

Sparky was Rose's first parrot. Rose hand raised Sparky from an unweaned baby. Once Sparky was old enough to perch properly, Rose started putting her to bed in her cage at night. Sparky was only 6 weeks old but she screamed for hours that first night. Rose’s husband and son were complained about the screaming. On the second night Rose rushed in to hold her, comfort her and walk around with her saying “shhhh” just like one does with a new baby.

This was a new baby for Rose and since that’s what she did with her son when he was a baby, she thought that that was what you did with a baby bird. When Sparky got really sleepy, sometime around midnight, she would put her back into her cage and Sparky would sleep quietly throughout the rest of the night. This ‘arrangement’ lasted about 2 years.

The longer Rose waited to comfort her, the longer Sparky screamed. At this point, Rose decided that the screaming had to stop. Not only was she not getting any sleep, but the rest of the household was awakened each time Sparky screamed. That summer, Rose decided to ignore the screaming completely to see if ignoring it and not going to Sparky would make Sparky decrease the screaming, or stop it altogether.

It took about two weeks for the screaming to diminish to acceptable natural levels, with this new arrangement lasting about three years. But during the latter part of the third year, Rose’s son started coming home well after Sparky’s bedtime and awakening her. Once awakened, Sparky began screaming. By now Rose had rescue birds and one in particular, Pepper the Umbrella cockatoo, didn’t appreciate being awakened by Sparky’s screaming. As a matter of fact, because of Sparky’s screaming, Pepper would start screaming. There’s nothing like the scream of an angry cockatoo.

Rose had a few choices:

Rose chose the latter but as it happens, that was not the right choice.

After a few years of this, Rose’s husband encouraged her to try to get Sparky to sleep in her own cage again instead of the bedroom. No one consulted Sparky and she wasn’t up for the idea. No way, no how.

hen Rose put Sparky into her cage at night, Sparky made sure Rose knew just what she thought about this new turn of events. Rose knew a lot more about birds and behavior at this point, but she was still wrapped around Sparky’s cute little toe. So…

For the first two weeks Sparky screamed for 2 hours, 45 minutes, louder during the last 15 minutes of the last two days. The next two weeks Sparky screamed for 1 hour 15 minutes, louder for the last 15 minutes. The next week and a half Sparky screamed between 15 – 30 minutes, and the last few days the screaming lasted for only a few minutes with a break, and again for a few minutes.

It appears that ignoring Sparky’s screaming is decreasing the amount of screaming that she does. Soon Sparky will realize that screaming is not achieving the desired result and the screaming will decrease even more. Extinction doesn’t eliminate screaming, but it can reduce screaming to the level it was performed before Rose started giving attention to it and increasing it. At the time of this writing the screaming has now decreased to just one good bellow and then silence.

We should add here that although Rose tried to distract Sparky from screaming with toys, food, bits of wood and other things, Sparky wanted no part of anything but being with Rose.

Sparky’s attention needs are met during the day when Sparky follows Rose around and often gets picked up and played with. All Sparky ever wants is just to be on Rose. She catches Rose’s attention by jumping up and down and by doing cockatoo talk, or even jumping onto Rose when Rose walks by her cage.

Analysis

Now let’s examine this scenario, and we will see how Rose reinforced the target behavior of screaming.

Rose puts Sparky to bed. Sparky screams. Rose rushes in to comfort her. Sparky is getting what she wants, Rose’s attention. The more she screams, the more attention she gets. Hey, Sparky is thinking, this is very cool!! To Sparky nothing is wrong here, she is getting all the drama and attention she wants. Life is good. Rose is reinforcing the screaming, the very behavior she wants to decrease.

Rose finally gets fed up with the noise and decides to ignore the screaming. Rose withholds the reinforcement/the attention. Sparky doesn’t understand what is happening now, screaming always used to get Rose to run right in and give her attention. Sparky tries as hard as she can to convince Rose to run to her by screaming longer and louder, but Rose still ignores the screaming. Thank heaven for ear plugs. Gradually, as our example shows, Sparky realizes that the screaming is not working and eventually her screaming decreases, much to the relief of Rose, the rest of the household, and especially Pepper.

In ignoring the screaming and withholding the reinforcement, Rose used the technique of EXTINCTION. In Rose’s case, she removed the attention. However, if Rose had not been consistent and had sometimes rushed in to Sparky, the procedure would not have worked and Sparky would have continued to scream, knowing that screaming works to get what she wants, even if only intermittently.

Once again, extinction does not eliminate a behavior. The behavior only decreases to the point that it was at before the reinforcement was first introduced. For example, although Sparky will now sleep through the night most nights, she will still scream on occasion just as she did before Rose introduced the reinforcement.

Our next example also targets screaming as an unwanted behavior, but instead of Extinction to modify the behavior, Susie uses a different method.

Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Georgie is an African Grey, and he loves his person, Susie. He is a happy bird… but, when he wants Susie, he screams. Neither Susie, nor her neighbors like the sound of his screaming. Susie decides that she will decrease Georgie’s screaming by withdrawing the reinforcement Georgie receives for it, so she ignores it, because she believes that it is her attention that maintains it.

Georgie wants Susie so he screams, Susie doesn’t respond. Georgie still wants Susie, but she is not responding. Georgie mutters quietly to himself. Immediately Susie runs into the room making a quiet “boop” sound that she knows Georgie likes to make. Susie lavishes praise and drama on Georgie for being such a nice quiet boy. Then Susie goes about her day, in sight of Georgie, and makes the quiet “boop” sound intermittently to establish a contact call between them. Georgie screams and Susie immediately leaves the room until Georgie is quiet. Once again she runs back into the room making the quiet “boop” and lavishly praises Georgie. If Susie is consistent with Georgie, he will begin to call her using the quiet “boop” sound. If Susie only goes to him when he is making a soft “boop” contact call, and leaving abruptly when he screams, Georgie will learn that screams drive her away, but “boop” establishes contact and brings her to him.

Analysis

In this example Susie is using both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE reinforcement to increase a behavior that is wanted. Both Positive Reinforcement and Negative Reinforcement maintain or increase a behavior.

To break this down, when Susie leaves the room because Georgie screams, she is doing something that Georgie does not want. Susie uses negative reinforcement to increase the use of an acceptable contact call, along with the positive reinforcement of returning when he is using that call and giving praise.

In this article we have addressed the value of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement, which are both entirely different than punishment. We do not advocate the use of punishment to alter behavior. There is a better way.

Authors wish to thank Dr. Susan Friedman, PhD for her critique of initial drafts of this article.