Variable Ratio Reinforcement.

Anybody who has taken psych 101 has to have run across a variable ratio reinforcement schedule. You can sort of nod along at the lecture and the rat implementation. But unless you have an outstanding professor, you won’t remember any real-life usage, or any relation to your personal life.

A brief refresher. Variable ratio reinforcement is in contrast to a more consistent schedule of reinforcement. Rat gets a treat every time it hits a button. Rat goes “Yay!” In a variable ratio reinforcement schedule, the rat does not get a treat every time. One time, it will get a treat, and the rat will go “Yay!” But there’s no guarentee that there will be a treat the next time. Maybe it will take five more presses. Maybe five thousand. This, my friends, is how people get addicted to gambling.

But obviously, gambling isn’t my focus. This tendency to engage in behavior for some reward that can’t be predicted is PRECISELY the reason many of us will engage in emotional masochism. Now and then, beating yourself up will result in making yourself feel good. That’s negative reinforcement as well. This book uses the example of how dredging up negative images and bad emotions has a way of releasing tension. The end result is that you’ll feel better, but how you do it is obviously not a healthy way.

Once upon a time, I used to think being pessimistic was a great idea. “Oh sure! If I expect nothing of myself, then I’ll never be disappointed! And if I succeed, I’ll be surprised!” Seemless inner critic doing his worst, my friends. And I used to think that philosophy was a GOOD thing. The thing is, the reinforcement for this comes few and far between. What exactly happens when I fall into the first clause? The critic will shift gears and rip me apart for failing! And what of the second? There’s no guarentee the critic would let me take pride in anything. That one in a hundred chance that the critic cedes and I’m allowed to take pride in myself is when the pessimism is reinforced.

Okay, I could have picked a better example. But it’s a tricky subject.

Oh hell, this is what this book says.

  • Obsessive worries are occasionally reinforced when the worry leads to a workable solution that reduces anxiety. This might happen once or twice a year, or even a few times in a lifetime. But the worrier keeps at it, moving from worry to worry, like the gambler who plays quarter after quarter, hoping this one or the next one will finally pay off.
  • THe obsessive reliving of an ackward social exchange is sometimes reinforced by those wonderful moments when you suddenly see it differently and don’t feel so rejected or incompetent after all. You remember something you did or said that seems, in memory, to save the situation. Your shame melts away, and you feel accepting of yourself again. The sad fact is that your obsessive reliving is hardly ever rewarded by such a reprieve. Usually you suffer, hour after hour, the mental videotapes of an embarassing exchange, waiting to put in the quarter tha tmakes you feel adequate once more.

My point is that this is how oddly negative behavior is encouraged. This is how the critic thrives. That one moment where he’s vindicated and says, “See, now what would you do without me?” This is why women stay with abusive men. This is why people refuse to change their ways without much proding or dire circumstances. Waiting and waiting for that one iota of affirmation that makes them feel like a whole person.

This answers a big question I had. Rather simply, how the hell do we end up corrupting our brains? More than how I got that way, how did I stay that way? It makes sense now.

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I hate it too. And I hate it more when men or women engage in behaviour that perpetuates the stereotype.

ryn: oooohhhh… i get it.

heehee…I can’t tell you how tickled I am that you’re reading the book. So cool. : D *BIG HUGS* I love you, I love you, great thoughts as always–

I love learning psychology. It’s so much fun. The reinforcement schedules, the rats…ahhh. Very nice. We actually got a CD in my class called Sniffy! where we could do virtual experiments on our own virtual rats! It was cool as hell. Until I realized I was turning the setting so I’d shock my rat every time he pressed the bar…and enjoying it. I shock myself.

Shyeah.