What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage

Ebony Mays
April 20, 2011
Instructor: Flynn
Psychology 201 Section 4

What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage

My feelings toward this self-help book are that I was unaware that a person could “train” another human being, similar to what an animal trainer does to exotic or everyday animals. I felt that the author, Amy Sutherland, wrote this self-help book to explain and give advice on how to “train” another person to do what you want them to do; without nagging or verbally demanding what you want them to do. I also felt that the techniques, which were written in this book were given to readers as a chance to improve and strengthen his/her relationship instead of destroying the relationship by making it worse. In my opinion, the techniques and advice given were amazingly interesting and that all of the reasons behind each technique made plenty sense to me. One technique used in Shamu was the Least Reinforcing Scenario (LRS) technique. An LRS is the process of ignoring behavior you do not want, but in a very specific way. It also tell the animal that it has made a mistake, and that nothing bad will happen if it makes a mistake again. Although the LRS is not perfect, it can still manage to let the animal know that it has done unacceptable behavior. Other than animals, this technique can also be exercised toward human beings as well. One example of this technique was used by Sutherland toward her husband, mother, and also a woman from the post office. Another technique used in this book was positive reinforcement. Instead of nagging and showing a negative result of change in behaviors in animals, Sutherland explains how the personal trainers reward the wanted behaviors and completely ignore the unwanted behaviors. One example of positive reinforcement was B.F. Skinner giving a pigeon a seed for every time it pecked on a piano key. This example demonstrates operant conditioning. Positive reinforcement techniques are more effective because it also motivates in a positive manner. Punishing an animal because of an unwanted behavior can motivate, but it does not positively motivate. The animal only does the wanted behavior because it wants to avoid punishment. Using this technique can be extremely useful and effective when interacting with other people. For example, if a teacher sees their student doing their class work and homework, making good grades or improving them as well, the teacher would reward them by praising or giving a reward such as a homework pass. This is an effective way of motivating people to perform better and be proud of it by receiving positive reinforcement. A third technique used in this self-help book was to take baby steps while training an animal ( humans as well ), when trying to get a wanted behavior. Trainers usually start from the bottom up when trying to teach the trainee to do the wanted behavior. Most of the time when a trainer does not take baby steps when training, he/she usually expects the changed behavior to occur overnight, which is clearly not going to happen. The author had stated how she wanted her husband to pick up his messy clothes laying around the house so bad that she began to nag constantly, loud sighs, and dramatically reiterating why his messy piles annoyed her. She explained that her expectations and responses were not reasonable because after all of the constant nagging, her husband still did not pick up anything from the floor. After Sutherland realized that her tactics did not work, she began a different approach to where she did not expect instant changes of her husband’s behavior. She began to give recognition to the small things that her husband had done instead of nagging about the huge things that he did not do. Slowly, but surely, her husband began to improve how he laid his belongings around the house. Out of all of the three techniques that were given in Shamu, I believe that the second and the third technique go hand in hand and are the most effective when living in today’s society. By using the third technique of taking baby steps when wanting a desired behavior, you have to use positive reinforcement of praise and reward. This, in turn, will encourage the “trainee” and will motivate them to become more productive and also, positive reinforcement will give them the initiative to do better and want to do better. Basically, we, as humans should ignore the unwanted behaviors and know exactly when to effectively use positive reinforcement, because sometimes, the “trainee” would change to the desired behavior, thinking that they will receive a reward or praise of some sort. So, in conclusion, I believe that Sutherland’s self help book, What Shamu Taught Me About Life, Love, and Marriage, is an effective guide for when someone needs sensible, realistic advice on how to improve human relationships when one another. For example, the book tells us what to consider what we are reinforcing, ignore what we do not like, use incompatible behaviors to know our species, and to not act like a prey animal around a predator. The book also gives many techniques to use when trying to receive a wanted behavior.