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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
-Listens to what he means when he is speaking -Pays attention to his nonverbal cues about his emotional state -Respects his boundaries and only assists him in expanding them, not demanding he do so -Rewards him for engaging in new healthy behaviours that he finds uncomfortable
Fellas, is it being an asshole for checks notes engaging with your partner?
Yeah, this person isn't disrespectfully treating a human as they would a dog, they're just respectfully treating dogs as they would a human.
If THAT is what counts as "being treated like a dog", woof woof!
🦴
People forget that humans are just animals (that can sometimes reason and talk). I still stand that dog training guides make better parenting books than many parenting books. At least up till around 3 years old.
The extension of this to adults is more challenging. Intent matters. This could be used abusively VERY easily. That is not happening here, however. With great power, comes great responsibility.
It's also worth noting that, if you use this, plan out how you will explain it later. A panicked, "oh shit, (s)he caught on!" will look bad, no matter what. A calm, thoughtful, positive explanation, delivered with confidence will likely get a lot more acceptance.
A: "Ok, what's with the M&Ms?"
B: "You've noticed then. :)"
A: "..."
B: "I noticed chocolate made you happy. I also noticed you were trying to overcome some negative habits. I decided to help. Whenever you put effort in, I rewarded it with a bit of chocolate. It makes you happy, and helps you lock a good habit in better."
A: "... You've been conditioning me?!?"
B: "Yes, don't you like the improvement?"
A "... yes, but I'm not sure I should..."
B: "M&M?"
You could also be even more cautious: "I noticed that they cheer you up, so I try to have them on hand for when you're feeling down." No mention of conditioning, wholesome, hard to argue against.
We constantly condition each other all the time. It's a part of human interaction. We don't usually do it consciously, but it's conditioning nonetheless. Couples will subtly condition their behavior to be more in tune with each other.
Consider a simple example. Imagine a you're in a couple, and you just moved in together. You're both used to living alone. You're used to flicking on the bedroom light as you walk into the bedroom before bed to prepare for bed. Unfortunately your partner tends to go to sleep before you. You wake them up a few times by accident, and they understandably grumble. You feel bad about it, as you care about them and don't want to wake them up. You wince the next day when you see how tired they seem. In time, you stop flicking the light on before you enter the room. Your partner's actions have conditioned you to not turn the light on. Your partner conditioned you without even intending to. We condition each other constantly. We observe what effect our behavior has on others, and we adjust our own behavior accordingly. We usually just don't refer to it as "conditioning," as that tends to have a nefarious connotation.
Just squirt him with the water bottle if he starts asking questions like this.
Negative reinforcement should be HIGHLY limited. It can cause unforeseen knock on effects. Any negative reinforcement should be highly targeted, without triggering a fight or flight response. It should also be accompanied by clear instructions for how to correct it. This applies to both humans and pets.
It's quite likely that most of the negative traits in the OP were caused by an attempt at negative reinforcement.
Intent matters, and methods matter. But I think what the friend is missing is that the methods aren't bad; op is using methods developed from scientific analysis of abused animals with the intent to ethically care for them. Coming back to intent, she clearly wants to help this guy who her training is identifying as having some kind of background of abuse. The methods might be a little crude in the sense that they were developed for animals and not for people (who are animals, but animals with several distinct qualities from other animals, like the ability to communicate complex ideas), and there are different, more well-adapted methods for people, but they're only crude in comparison to those modern human-focused methods. They're still quite effective, and I would still consider them ethical for use on humans when paired with an altruistic intent, which she seems to be conveying. As long as she still views the guy as fully a person, a peer, then I see nothing wrong here.
Intent matters, and methods matter.
pretty much agree, it's not like she's conditioning him to sounds CLICK-CLICK good boy....
Though there's probably a significant amount of people on lemmy who would be into actually that.
You can absolutely condition me into doing whatever you want by cracking open a beer next to me
I brought a six pack to a final exam in grad school (take the test in the same state in which you study, right?) and people around me perked up and almost literally started drooling when I cracked the first one.
Edit: no, we engineering students don't have drinking problems, you have a drinking problem!
Beer isn't a problem, it's a complex mixture.
Someone who always has a snack for me if I'm feeling down?? Sign me the fuck up!
This is probably a me thing, but if I were to catch on to someone doing this I might start wondering at some hidden intent behind everything they do
This. ^
Most of the time, you can't tell the persons intentions from that position. I hope for the guy's sake the woman is genuine about helping him. Though her method is fucked.
I mean, it doesn't say that she forces him to eat it from her hand or anything.
Me, reading title: "WTF?!? That's messed up!"
Me, after reading the post: "I'm so fucking jealous."
The biggest thing for me is that she's eroding his emotional sovereignty. She's taking covert actions to modulate and decide his mood for him.
Sometimes, when I'm feeling down, I just want to feel that and get through on my own. But she's deciding which of his moods isn't appropriate and is changing his behaviour. If this were out in the open, he would be able to accept or refuse her attempts to cheer him up or divert him. But he (presumably) doesn't even know it's happening. That's not cool.
It sounds fine because it's worded like she's helping him but she's still taking away his autonomy. Just bring it out in the open: "hey, I've noticed, when you're sad or stressed, peanut M&Ms cheer you up. Would you like me to keep some on-hand?" With that, you've alerted them to behaviours about themself and got their consent to "help" them.
If that's the timbre of their interactions, I've got no qualms. But setting the context as "I train abused dogs" brings the mental image to one step above "hiding medicine in a dog treat."
I appreciate your comment.
I've actually talked to my fiance about things like this, because I noticed that I was 'handling' him, and I felt like it was demeaning to him. Luckily for me, he considered what I said and informed me that he likes that.
Consent makes the difference!
Probably helps that I'm used to disturbed and abused humans, too...
Some people take great offense when you don’t pretend humans have somehow evolved beyond the animal kingdom. Yes, we are still animals, and much of what works for them still works on us.
A man can only dream of having a girl who's so attentive and understanding. She'd make a good mom.
Most of us are so utterly self-consumed.
Many people apparently loving this, I see it as a red flag. She's manipulative and I'd second guess every action she'd take from the day I noticed it
Edit: funny that people are down voting this, I guess they want to be manipulated by their partners.
Take it from someone who divorced a manipulative partner, it's not cool them all the time lying pushing and manipulating you to be the way they want you to be.
This reads like you didn't even read the post, and you're projecting your negative experience with your ex onto it for some reason. Yeah, abuse isn't cool, but that's not what this is.
Honestly if we treated each other as well as we treated dogs we'd already be in paradise.
How close would that be to slavery?
Hey if it works out works. She is an asshole for not using proper grammar and punctuation though.
The way she contextualises it is a bit odd, but the actual thing isn't that bad. It's just accommodating him, being aware of his particulars, and helping him over his issues. The gift of a single M&M is unusual, but giving your partner something nice isn't strange. People do similar things all the time in relationships, it's just not thought of as training.
Biggest issue is her framing it that way, because people might either get the wrong idea, or give the wrong idea. Saying she's training him like a dog gives the idea of a lead, like with an actual dog.
This is literally how I want to be treated.
I mean this simply gets into the ethics of manipulation. Ultimately, it comes down to choosing happiness.
Insert "it should've been me" meme here.
My main issue with this is that the way we train dogs is that we train them to be dependant on us. So yeah, she's training him to come out of his shell, maybe, but if it works the same way a dog does he'll only be loyal and listen to her. Especially because anyone else he meets won't treat him like a dog and will expect him to behave like a person without the expectation of rewards which would probably make him more adverse to others
Of course, he's a human being too so it won't go down exactly like that. I'm just saying that from the very first premise the way we train dogs is by training them to be codependant
It's odd, sweet, I think. She's doing her best in the way she knows best
sounds like they treat their partner better than most people do, honestly.