Horse Psychology: Reinforcement vs Punishment

Most of the time, when we hear reinforcement and punishment, it gives us ideas of either giving treats or giving lashes with a whip. One seems so positive and wonderful, and the other so awful. But what do these terms actually mean?

Reinforcement is somehow rewarding for performing a desired behavior, while punishment is somehow discouraging an undesired behavior. These are then further separated into positive and negative. Positive means something is being added, negative means something is being taken away.

Positive Reinforcement (R+)

Positive reinforcement is something a lot of people talk about (also shortened to R+). Basically, to encourage a behavior, a positive stimulus is added. Much of the time, we use treats to reward a behavior. However, a “Good boy/girl!” is also a form of positive reinforcement, as is a positive touch (petting, scratching an itchy spot, etc.). Positive reinforcement probably has the strongest positive effect of any of the behavior modification techniques. Different rewards have different values. For example, a horse may react more enthusiastically to a treat than to a verbal praise. This is both good and bad. It is good when a behavior is particularly difficult for the horse (like a difficult movement or something that is hard for that horse particularly), as it can help provide more encouragement and make it feel more “worthwhile” to the horse. It can be bad, however, if a horse gets overly excited about a high value reward and starts offering behaviors out of turn and becoming pushy for it (such as constantly offering to pick up a foot and then nudging for a treat immediately afterward). So, while we may start new requests with a higher value reward, we have to remember that we may need to back down on the value over time or make sure the value of the reward matches the difficulty of the request.

Negative Reinforcement (R-)

Most people think of something negative when they think of negative reinforcement. It doesn’t sound all that nice, does it? However, we use it all the time. If we ask our horse to pick up their foot and squeeze their leg while doing so to cue them, that’s adding pressure. When they pick it up, we release that pressure. That release is negative reinforcement. We use negative reinforcement a LOT when we ride. Every time we “give” after a horse does what we ask, that’s negative reinforcement. Some trainers use a LOT of negative reinforcement, almost to the expense of any positive reinforcement. It’s important that we don’t get stuck in that cycle, as it can remove some of the extra reward that can give horses more joy in their work. One does also need to be careful not to let R- become P+; pressure to perform a behavior is one thing, but punishing a horse for not doing a behavior that it doesn’t understand is unkind. If it doesn’t understand but is reacting to the pressure, try changing the type of pressure until it does what is asked, not just increasing the pressure that it doesn’t understand.

Negative Punishment (P-)

This sounds like the worst of all four behavior modification techniques, doesn’t it? However, it is not. Negative punishment is taking away something “good” when a negative behavior is being used. For example, if a horse is excessively chasing its companions and potentially injuring them, taking it away from those companions and putting it in a stall is negative punishment. I find we use probably less negative punishment with horses than we do other behavior modification techniques, but we do use it somewhat. We use it more with other humans or even with dogs more than we do with horses (such as taking away toys for negative behavior), but it can have its place.

Positive Punishment (P+)

This is the one most people don’t like. This is actively punishing a horse for a behavior. While most people probably think immediately of smacking a horse, even verbal corrections can count as positive punishment. While we don’t like to use it, it does have its place, and horses use it with each other quite a lot (such as a mare nipping her foal for trying to eat her food). Positive punishment is perhaps the quickest way to eliminate negative behaviors. However, there is a fine line between punishment and abuse. Where punishment is excessive, that starts to become abuse. For example, beating a horse for raising its head is excessive and abusive. However, a swift correction that only lasts a split second after a horse nips is punishment. Remember, don’t punish a horse for not doing something; punish for doing something (eg., don’t punish for “not standing still,” but punish for nipping or kicking).

Mixing it All Together

When training horses, we generally mix it all together. Birds may learn only from positive reinforcement, but horses learn from all four. Many try to use only R+, but they find that they also use R- for that split second before R+. While we want to minimize punishment, that does not mean we never use it. For example, if a horse threatens to bite at feeding time (probably from food-related anxiety), we may verbally correct with a “Ah-ah!” or making the horse back up (P+), take that bucket away until it is calmer and shows better body language (P-), and then give it its food again (R+). The key to effective use of punishment is to follow it up with a reward. Otherwise, we can make our horses’ lives pretty sad. After all, if your parents never praised you and only reprimanded you or took away things, you’d be pretty miserable too, right? Even R- needs to be bolstered with R+ at times to keep the horse happy. Also, remember that punishment doesn’t work if a horse is in fight/flight/freeze; punishment only reinforces the fear. Reinforcement does work to a certain extent, but as horses don’t learn well in fight/flight/freeze, nothing you do is going to be extremely effective until they come out of that mode.

While some of these methods of behavior modification are more pleasant than others, an appropriate mixture of all four is important to maximize the horse’s understanding of what is being asked and what behaviors are not appropriate. It is best to maximize reinforcement whenever possible, but it is useful to use punishment when applicable and necessary to mitigate negative behaviors. The key is to keep the reinforcement (or punishment) equal to the request so that there is a sense of fairness to what is being asked.