I have a small fluffy white dog named Tinkerbell, who becomes completely obsessed with my husband from the moment he comes home from work. When he walks in, Tink will begin the dance with a paw on his foot in a “hello”, and then lay down alert next to his chair. Most days we debrief the day with a cocktail and while we sit and converse, Tink lays down at my husband’s feet, like a sphinx keeping sentry over a pyramid. And there she sits, eyes fixed, patiently waiting….. until six o’clock. How in the hell she figures out the time of day is anybody’s guess, but at this point the dance changes and she begins pawing his leg. “Excuse me kind sir but I think you have been talking quite long enough.” My husband gives a halfhearted, “No.”, but she knows he doesn’t mean it. And she persists. Because she knows what is coming, and there is no choice in the matter. What happens next can only be described as a frenzied exhibition of jumps and twirls at any slight motion that could indicate – a rising from the chair. Because once he rises from his chair, Tinkerbell knows that her training has paid off.

Of course, Tinkerbell, is doing what she is doing because it works. She gets her treat which is what she wants. And she has learned what she needed to, to make that happen. Makes you wonder who is training whom? It works because reinforcements are extraordinarily powerful. They speak to our deepest and most ancient parts of our brains that fuel our desires for pleasure and belonging, and respond with avoidance to our fears and desperations. It is these very reinforcements that destroy one’s will power, or make us take actions we know we really shouldn’t. This is why my husband refuses to go to “free” timeshare seminars (no matter how awesome the “free gift”), because he knows he’ll cave, he knows that the reinforcement strategies the presenters use will work. It’s why we are compelled to constantly “check” our phones and social media accounts. It’s why people fall for scams. It’s why many children stress themselves into getting straight A’s and perfect test scores. It’s why we shop for things we don’t need. Or why we purchase that symbol of status.

Like Tinkerbell, we are influenced by reinforcers. And we are influenced in the same locations of the brain as our dog. All organisms have survival needs, and they will do what it takes to have those needs met. And when you understand how to reinforce those survival “triggers”, then you can drive behavior. Facebook, twitter, MadMen, they all know this. However, when Tinkerbell employs her learned behavior what is she learning about herself? Is she thinking, “Hey, I was so cleaver with Dad, maybe I should try it out on Mom?” Or, “I’m not going to do this anymore because I’m tired of the same old treats.” Probably not, because she is in fact a dog. But while all humans are animals not all animals are humans. Reinforcers work on the dimension of ourselves that really isn’t “us”. We are so much more than reactors to stimuli.