Operant Conditioning: Response Size & Big Picture Focus

I first wrote about operant conditioning a dozen years ago in my article on using for behavior shaping inside romantic relationships. If you haven’t read that one, or it’s been a while, read it first, because this article builds upon it.

The quick summary is that through rewards and punishment, you can direct another person’s behavior. Reward her, and you’ll get more of that behavior. Punish her, and you’ll get less of it.

Today’s article focuses on some nuance in operant conditioning. Namely: how the size of your response affects reinforcement/discouragement… plus the importance of focusing on the big picture too rather than exclusively the small one.

 

Big vs. Little Picture Behavior Shaping

Oftentimes in behavior shaping, you will encounter complex situations.

For instance, a woman may make a mistake inside the broader context of doing something aimed at helping you.

Here’s an example: let’s say you want to take a day trip together. You task her with planning it out. She eagerly handles the planning, happy to invest in your relationship this way. The big day comes, and the two of you drive far out of town. After a fun day of touring about, you arrive at the hotel she planned out… only to discover the place no longer exists. It was demolished two years ago. It is now nighttime, you’re in the middle of nowhere, tired from a day of trekking, and there are no other hotels nearby.

Making things worse, you’ve heard of highwaymen in the area setting up traps for lonely travelers driving the dark roads at night. People have been rolling along, only to come upon a truck parked in the middle of the road, blocking it. Sometimes someone may be laying on the road, seemingly injured. Meanwhile, other robbers lie in wait along the shoulder of the road, hiding themselves until the victims exit their vehicle to investigate.

You’re thinking about all this, tired, stressed, and your woman is starting to panic to boot. What is the right response from an operant conditioning perspective?

• She needs punishment to avoid future situations like this (i.e., not ensuring a crucial destination still, in fact, exists).

• However, that is not the only consideration here, because there is both a BIG picture and a SMALL one.

The small picture is “your woman brought you to a hotel in the middle of nowhere that no longer exists.”

The big picture is “your woman did a lot of research to put this entire day trip together, investing in you and the relationship.”

If you punish severely (such as getting extremely annoyed at her), you punish BOTH the mistake of bringing you to the missing hotel AND the investment of planning out the whole day trip.

You will teach her to be more careful, yes.

However, you will also condition her to not be so eager to invest in you or the relationship.

The latter is a big problem you probably did not intend – but will give yourself to deal with regardless!

 

Response Size Affects Attribution

I have not seen tests on this, but my experience has led me to conclude that the bigger the response, the bigger the attribution.

That is to say, if you give the day trip-planning girl a small, measured punishment, she will tie that to the immediate thing (missing hotel), and likely learn to plan trips more carefully in the future.

However, if you give her a LARGE, SEVERE punishment, she will tie that to the big picture item (her planning out the entire day trip), and learn to turn down opportunities to invest in the relationship like this instead of eagerly take them on.

In other words:

1. You sigh deeply and say, “This is trouble. We’re in the middle of nowhere, in a region that has bandits, we’re tired, it’s dark, and this hotel does not exist. The rest of the trip was excellent, but this is not good.” She gets specific, measured punishment that makes her more likely to be careful in her research in the future. OR

2. You freak out, yelling, screaming, and ranting, banging your hands on the steering wheel, cursing, totally out of control. Maybe you loudly ask, “Why did I ever leave this to you?” making her feel as if the entire trip has been a complete disaster. She gets large, severe punishment that she is going to tie to the entire trip, making her more likely to avoid planning day trips in the future, wanting to go on day trips, or really invest in the relationship with you more generally.

If the response is large, the attribution moves to the BIG PICTURE.

That’s no problem when both big picture and little picture are both bad. For instance, if she went out partying without you, then got drunk and you had to call her a taxi. When she got to your place you were furious. The message she gets is not “getting drunk when I go out is painful” (little picture) but rather “going out to party without my man is painful” (big picture). That serves your aims too – unless you want your girl going out to party without you (maybe some dudes do?).

However, when the situation is mixed – such as when the big picture is good (she was doing something to be helpful) but the little picture is bad (she messed up) – you must be very careful what response size you use IF you do not want to discourage the big picture good behavior.

 

Why People Tune Out of Relationships

Disproportionate response sizes that accidentally punish good big picture behavior are an important reason people ‘tune out’ of long-term relationships, in my experience.

The stereotype of the henpecked husband who spends more and more time at work, avoiding being around his family, or the deadbeat dad who one day goes out for milk and never comes back, are examples of this. People don’t one day tune out or one day leave because “they were just bored” (well, not normally, anyway). They do it because they reached a breaking point where they felt their efforts were too thankless, or even felt actively resented.

What often happens in these relationships is the man tries to do what he thinks is good (investing in the relationship – what the woman wants!), only to do something that is not done the way the woman wants, or he overlooks something the woman thinks is important, or otherwise fails to meet her expectations, and she gives him lots of drama.

Because the response size is disproportionate to the offense, and does not account for the mixed scenario of “good big picture, bad little picture”, the man learns the ultimate lesson that “investing in relationship = bad” and reduces his investment levels (which, ultimately, frustrates the woman even more, leading to more drama, more punishment, and more tuning out on the man’s part).

But men often do this too; particularly hot-tempered men. If you are a hot-tempered man you must be very careful about this. When you punish a woman too severely for messing up on a detail when she was trying to serve you/the relationship, the ultimate effect is that you train her not to serve you or the relationship.

In other words, you are causing her to tune out of the relationship.

That is probably NOT what you want.

But no matter WHAT you WANT, it WILL be the effect, if the response size is disproportionate, and the ‘training scenario’ is mixed!

 

Dealing with Mixed Scenario Punishment/Reward

These considerations only matter for genuine ‘mixed scenarios’. That is:

• Big picture good, little picture bad (planned whole day trip, but messed up hotel)

• Big picture bad, little picture good (went out to drink with the girls, but home early)

Especially if you are hot-tempered or present time-oriented, you are going to tend to prioritize the most immediate (little picture) item and ignore the overarching (big picture) context.

Examples:

• You blow up at her for messing up the hotel. The lesson she learns? “Don’t agree to plan day trips or invest so much in the relationship. It hurts! Not worth it!”

• You gush over her for how responsible she is coming home early from a night out drinking with the girls. The lesson she learns? “It’s totally cool to go out drinking without him. I even get bonus points with him if I manage to get home early!”

In the first example, you inadvertently discourage her from investing more in the relationship.

In the second example, you inadvertently encourage her going out to drink without you.

Both of these are mistakes, assuming you want girls to invest in you and don’t want them going out partying and drinking.

READ MORE: Why I Quit Dating Girls Who Club, Party, or Drink

How should you respond to these scenarios?

With a deliberately muted, controlled response. You HAVE to! You MUST be aware of the double condition – one element good, the other element bad. You do not want to discourage good behavior, but you also don’t want to encourage bad.

So:

• When she screws up the hotel, you control yourself, reminding yourself she planned the whole trip, and just express moderate, measured disappointment. “Welp, this is bad.” If she’s clearly already stressed, you keep punishment very light (she is already self-punishing); if she’s blissfully ignorant as to how bad the situation is, you apply a little more pressure, while still keeping it measured – she needs to know she screwed up, but that is was just on this one thing, not everything.

• When she comes home early after going out drinking, again, you control yourself, not gushing in relief but giving her a measured, “I’m glad you didn’t stay out too late,” that approves of her return but still shows disapproval overall that she went out in the first place. This way she gets the message that “Coming home early was good, but it’d be better had I not gone out at all.”

The muted, measured response is KEY for any mixed behavior shaping situation you find yourself in. It is absolutely essential to avoid sending the wrong message and ‘mistraining’ her.

 

Mixed Scenarios Are Common. Always Look at the Big Picture!

You need to get yourself into the habit of examining behaviors in light of the context they occur within. Most small behaviors occur in the context of a larger overarching pattern.

People make mistakes when they are trying to do good things. They also do good things in the midst of overall misbehaving. If you only address the immediate item, and if you do so in a strong or severe way, you risk shaping behavior in the wrong direction: punish good behavior, or reward bad behavior.

Always examine the meta-context of a behavior:

• Was the good behavior done in a bad larger context? Do not give gushing praise.

• Was the bad behavior done in a good larger context? Do not mete out harsh punishment.

This is how you avoid worsening bad behaviors accidentally, or discouraging good behaviors accidentally.

Many a relationship has been sabotaged by discouraging good behaviors or permitting bad ones. Don’t make that mistake – always keep the context top of mind!

Chase Amante

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READ NEXT: “How & When to Reward a Woman”