Negative reinforcement to stop screaming ?

[coolhady13]

hi everybody ,

so i was thinking about screaming parrots , so here is what i know ,

i know that a parrot screams because it want to get its owner attention as the parrot knows that when he screams his owner will come to him , now what if every time the parrot screams instead of giving him attention why not used something negative that he doesnt like , so that he will learn that when he screams that negative thing will happen which he doesnt like so he wouldnt scream any more , would that work ? now i dont know what is the "negative thing" till know i keep thinking about something maybe a big toy that the parrot is scared of will show up every time he screams or something like that , i know im sounding like a bad guy again , but i just something came in my mind that i wanted to share with you .

till me your thoughts and opinions

[Mum2rory]

Doesnt sound like a good idea. You will only cause more problems with your parrot. To me its like hitting a child for being naughty. Parrots are birds, we adopt them into our family. We should not scare them or use negative reinforcement with them. We should be thinking of ways to encourage positive beahviour in them and rewarding that, not punishing the negative behaviour. Sorry, but I dont think its a good idea.

[GlassOnion]

You need the know that the term "negative reinforcement" does not mean "punishment". Negative reinforcement simply means, "taking something AWAY to encourage something." What you're describing is a punishment method, not negative reinforcement.

As for whether it would work or not... I don't really know.

[coolhady13]

Doesnt sound like a good idea. You will only cause more problems with your parrot. To me its like hitting a child for being naughty. Parrots are birds, we adopt them into our family. We should not scare them or use negative reinforcement with them. We should be thinking of ways to encourage positive beahviour in them and rewarding that, not punishing the negative behaviour. Sorry, but I dont think its a good idea.

yup i thought its a bad idea 2 so i posted here

[coolhady13]

You need the know that the term "negative reinforcement" does not mean "punishment". Negative reinforcement simply means, "taking something AWAY to encourage something." What you're describing is a punishment method, not negative reinforcement.

As for whether it would work or not... I don't really know.

i see , my mistake

[Kathleen]

There are situations where negative reinforcement (as explained, take away a stimulus to increase behavior) is useful. however to a parrot owner dealing with this the commonly given advice is to use positive reinforcement to increase a different behavior for getting attention, withholding what is reinforcing and "saving" social attention as a reinforcer for only desired behavior while relying on extinction of the undesired behavior (ignore it and hope the bird gives up).

[Michael]

Oh yeah, good point. Kili has been taught to say "hello" when she wants attention or to be let out of the cage. This is reinforced on a variable ratio reinforcement schedule by sometimes letting her out when she says "hello." On the other hand screaming is negatively punished by not letting her out on purpose when she does that.

Thus finding an alternate behavior to positively reinforce is better training than to punish the undesirable because the parrot maintains a good relationship with the owner and produces the behavior that is more reinforced.

[coolhady13]

i see so no punishment , thanks for your replies