Coaching with Christine: Positive vs negative

COACHING WITH CHRISTINE

Positive versus negative

You may have heard of positive and negative reinforcement, but what do those terms actually mean? CHRISTINE ARMISHAW explains.

Positive reinforcement versus negative reinforcement – now that’s jargon that may have you scratching your head! Some people hear the term negative reinforcement and panic, preferring to give the idea a wide berth. Is it even fair to use these types of training based on the way a horse learns? I love to use both techniques with every horse I work with, and here's why horses respond so well when I do.

But first things first, let’s get straight with what positive and negative actually mean. They are not referring to ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Instead, put your mind into basic math mode: ‘positive’ means to add something; ‘negative’ means to subtract, or to take something away. The reasons why you would add or take something away would be either to encourage a behaviour you want, or to stop one from happening. The things you might be adding or removing include pressure, treats, voice or touch, all depending on the case at hand.

Subtracting says yes

Negative reinforcement only got a bad rep because of the connotations associated with the word ‘negative’. However, it simply means to take something away in order to encourage a certain behaviour or action.

This is how it looks: the horse is still, the rider squeezes or kicks the horse’s sides (adds pressure), the horse walks on, and the squeezing or kicking (pressure) is stopped (taken away). When the rider carries this out correctly and with perfect timing, they’re effectively saying to the horse yes, moving forward is the easiest way to get my leg pressure to stop.

But, and this is arguably the most important point, the horse doesn’t walk on because the rider squeezed or kicked, but rather because they learn that the rider will stop squeezing or kicking when they do walk on.

This is fundamental equine education that is often lacking because the rider doesn’t fully understand how negative reinforcement works. If a rider feels their horse has to be kicked all the time just to keep it moving, the problem does not lie with the horse, but rather with the way the rider is administering their ‘go’ aid. The rider needs to apply enough initial pressure to get the horse to move forward then, once they start moving, to stop kicking and leave the horse alone. A horse is sensitive enough to feel a fly land on their skin and subsequently twitch it off, so if your horse is not responding to the repeated thumping of your heels against their sides, that’s a training issue.

Look at it this way, when a foal is born, they don’t come into this world knowing that when a human eventually climbs aboard and squeezes their sides they are meant to move. We have to teach them this concept through pressure being added and then released. Which leads us to the other term for negative reinforcement - pressure and release. Whatever you call it, this is arguably one of the most effective horse training methods around.

Adding can say yes too

Positive reinforcement is the concept of adding something to reinforce an action or behaviour. You might be clickertraining your horse to step up onto a pedestal. Every time they come close or start to lift their foot, you’d click and offer a food reward in order to encourage them to repeat or build on that action. Here you are adding something - the food - to reinforce the behaviour you want, with the aim of motivating your horse to do it again. Pure positive reinforcement would culminate in your horse being totally free to move around, with you only clicking and rewarding when they choose to offer the action you’re asking for.

Conversely, if you do this training with a halter and lead rope, and you pull your horse towards the pedestal, only stopping the pulling when they come close or start to lift their foot onto it, you’ve crossed back into negative reinforcement.

Blend for success

The good news is positive and negative reinforcement don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Release of pressure, combined with adding food rewards, pats, or verbal praise can help to reinforce the action you want your horse to take. One method is not necessarily better than the other, but rather both are incredibly useful training techniques that can and should be used together. This could be squeezing your horse with your leg to get them to walk on, then stopping the squeezing when they move (negative reinforcement), while also giving them a soft pat and verbal praise (positive reinforcement).

Understanding how a horse learns and how to tap into this during training is useful across all equestrian pursuits. And anything we’re able to do to make training clearer, easier to understand and more enjoyable for the horse will only serve to strengthen and foster success in our horse-human partnership.

At Equestrian Hub you can watch a video of Christine demonstrating positive and negative reinforcement training techniques.

PREVIOUS PAGE: Christine gives Lyric positive reinforcement by way of a soft pat. BELOW LEFT: Pressure from whip tapping, the halter, and the lead rope are applied to ask Noble forward. BELOW RIGHT: To reinforce the action that Christine wants, all pressure ceases as soon as Noble takes a step forward (negative reinforcement). All images by Oliver Armishaw-Webb