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Fig. 9.5. Problematical or insolvable conflict occurs in one of two general ways: (1) when events are highly predictable but not adequately under the animal's control when they happen to occur (P/C—), or (2) when the animal has a high degree of control over the event but cannot predict when it is going to happen ((P/C). When respondent and operant events are either both unpredictable and uncontrollable (—P/—C) or highly predictable and controllable (P/C), the result is helplessness, on the one hand, and elated confidence, on the other. Neither helplessness nor elated confidence is associated with conflict. Functional disturbances corresponding to extroverted neuroticism (see above) occur in the anxiety-elation-frustration half of the matrix, whereas disturbances associated with introverted neuroticism occur in the half of the matrix bounded by anxiety-depression-frustration. Under normal conditions, all four of the above influences (anxiety, elation, depression, and frustration) contribute constructively to an animal's adaptation and homeostatic equilibrium (central area).

two equal sides—one side designated controllable and predictable, and the other designated unpredictable and uncontrollable. Four respondent-operant interactions are possible between predictability (P)/unpredictability ( P) and controllability (C)/uncontrollability

1. -P/C (unpredictable but controllable) Anxiety

2. P/C (both predictable and controllable) Elation/optimism

3. P/ C (both unpredictable and uncontrollable) Depression/helplessness

4. P/-C (predictable but uncontrollable) Frustration

Note that the respondent-operant axis involving anxiety and frustration runs in a direction in which predictability improves as control declines. One would predict from this model that anxiety (—P/C) is most intense when the event is highly controllable but its occurrence unpredictable. Further, maximal frustration (P/ C) occurs when the event is highly predictable, but uncontrollable. The respondent-operant axis between elation (P/C) and depression ( P/ C) promotes optimism on the one hand and helplessness on the other. Optimism occurs if the event is both highly predictable and controllable, whereas helplessness follows if the event is both unpredictable and uncontrollable. In the case of the elation/depression axis, elation emerges as an outcome of the reciprocal improvement of predictability and control as a unit. In contrast, depression is directly related to the reciprocal decline of predictability and control as a unit.

Figure 9.6 diagrammatically represents the necessary respondent-operant components required to generate problematical or insolvable

Respondent input

Operant input

Fig. 9.6. Diagram illustrating the respondent/operant interactions required to produce problematical or insolvable conflict. Note that both operant and respondent influences produce conflict around a shared axis. Conflict is a composite of anxiety (respondent contribution) and frustration (operant contribution).

Operant input

Fig. 9.6. Diagram illustrating the respondent/operant interactions required to produce problematical or insolvable conflict. Note that both operant and respondent influences produce conflict around a shared axis. Conflict is a composite of anxiety (respondent contribution) and frustration (operant contribution).

conflict. Notice that the respondent input is as unpredictive as it is predictive (P = -P). Likewise, the operant output is equally likely to control the event as it is not to control it (C = — C). This situation represents a true insolvable conflict because neither a choice based on respondent predictability nor a choice based on instrumental probabilities will succeed in resolving the dilemma. Under conditions of intense conflict with the arousal of fright-flight-fight mechanisms or exposure to strong conflicting approach-avoidance emotions, predisposed and genetically prepared dogs may experience a neurotic disturbance potentially capable of disabling atten-tional functions and the entire respondent-operant system. it should be kept in mind from the foregoing model that conflict takes place along a shared axis compounded of both respondent and operant components.

in the case of the respondent-operant axis between elation (optimism) and depression (helplessness), a number of interesting and paradoxical predictions can be made. When a dog is exposed to a pattern of unpredictable and uncontrollable events (-P/-C), the conditioned outcome is depression or helplessness. Having been reduced to a helpless state and then exposed to stimulus events and response outcomes occurring on a highly predictable and controllable basis, the model predicts that insolvable conflict will ensue— that is, the animal will not know what to do. On the surface, this outcome may seem paradoxical and unlikely, yet there is a great deal of experimental support for it in the literature of learned helplessness. After exposure to inescapable-uncontrollable traumatic shock, helpless dogs exhibit a wide range of post-traumatic cognitive and behavioral deficits. For instance, if such dogs are consequently exposed to controllable training situations, most of them fail to learn even simple avoidance responses—responses that would have been very easy for them to learn prior to the helplessness-inducing trauma. Helpless dogs appear paralyzed, requiring direct and forceful physical prompting to escape the shock; left on their own, such dogs often just sit down and stoically accept the pain. The net result of helplessness is a collision of incompatible expectancies resulting in insolvable conflict precipitating various degrees of dysfunction within both respondent and instrumental systems.

The foregoing model also predicts conflict when dogs are exposed to a learning history in which stimulus events have been uniformly predictable and controllable. Dogs exposed to such contingencies of optimism (P/C), when subsequently exposed to uncontrollable and unpredictable conditions, should also fall victim to insolvable conflict. One might intuitively predict that such confident dogs, having known nothing but behavioral success, would go on working at the problem and only quit after expending a great deal of persistent effort and having tested out and exhausted every option. The model predicts instead that certain dogs, especially under the pressure of traumatic or intense emotional arousal, will exhibit strong signs of internal conflict and be far less flexible than dogs exposed to a more natural envi ronment of probabilities. The occurrence of such conflict may be obtainable only under carefully controlled conditions, but the potential detriment of either extreme should be kept in mind when developing a training system or rearing practice.

The foregoing discussion underscores the importance of predictable and controllable environmental stimulation for the attainment of healthy emotional and behavioral development. In the absence of orderly information, attentional abilities and learning become progressively dysfunctional and behavior inevitably disorganized. Further, it is evident that various debilitating cognitive, emotional, and somatic effects are evoked by the perception that significant environmental events are unpredictable and uncontrollable. Stimulus events that are unusually intense or traumatic, monotonously repetitive, long enduring, or poorly differentiated from other stimuli evoking opposing responses—all of these sorts of stimuli are productive of stress and potentially result in the elaboration of behavioral disturbances and learning disorders. However, provocative events that are unanticipated (i.e., unpredictable) are particularly prone to produce a biological stress reaction. Beerda and colleagues (1998), for example, tested dogs under a variety of stress-producing conditions, using noxious stimulation. They found that saliva cortisol levels (a sensitive indicator of stress) became elevated only when noxious stimulation (e.g., intermittent sound blasts, shock, a falling bag, opening an umbrella, or physical restraint) was presented on an unpredictable basis. Noxious stimulation that was presented in a predictable fashion still caused the dogs tested to become restless, cower, and shake, but the stimulation did not induce a cortisol stress response.

Pavlov placed tremendous importance on the role of conflict and emotional distress in the development of neuroses. The studies under his supervision demonstrated the importance of clearly defined CS events and the need for a matching correspondence between a dog's moment-to-moment motivational state and the behavioral demands placed upon it. Successful adaptation depends on the development of a fluid correspondence or interface between an animal's expectations about the environment and the confirmation of these expectancies—that is, the acquisition of reliable information about what will occur and knowing what to do (and how to do it) just in case such and such occurs. These experiences result in dogs becoming progressively attuned and responsive to the social and physical environment's demands and pressures without experiencing undue distress, anxiety, or frustration. According to Pavlov, the habitual production of stressful conflict contributes a large measure to the etiology of behavioral disorders in humans and animals, especially in animals prone to neurotic elaboration [e.g., those possessing highly excitable (choleric) or inhibitable (melancholic) temperaments].

These observations underscore the importance of providing dogs with adequate instrumental control over significant events, as well as the inherent dangers of situations in which such control (and predictability) is compromised. Such situations may produce excessive and pathological demands upon dogs to adjust, precipitating the expression of disorganized and dysfunctional behavior. These effects are especially deleterious in the case of overly excitable dogs, unable to control impulses without extreme exertion and difficulty, and overly inhibited dogs, unable to act effectively even under the modest and routine demands of daily life.

Although the pronounced symptoms of behavioral disintegration described in the laboratory are rarely met with in family dogs, many canine behavioral disturbances and compulsions may be attributed to the regular occurrence of events that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. This is especially true in those cases where stimulus events evoke highly emotional and persistent conflicts. From the foregoing observations, one can conclude that remedial training for such dogs should include an effort to identify such sources of conflict and to provide the dogs with consistent and well-organized instructional activity. Behavioral training is beneficial; it makes explicit and constantly reiterates the reliability of significant events, a process that helps dogs to recover their self-confidence and to develop an expectancy that the environment is predictable and controllable.

Neurosis and the Family Dog

Many everyday situations generate potentially harmful psychological conflicts and distress. For instance, routine disciplinary interaction often lacks sufficient clarity, predictability, and controllability. Further, training signals are not always carefully differentiated from one another. This lack of clarity sets the groundwork for confusion and unproductive training.

Many owners believe that their dog understands words in a way similar to how humans understand language. The urge to attribute humanlike learning and language abilities to dogs is a strong tendency, one that has attracted the noncritical support of many adherents. The belief that dogs can understand language has led some individuals to devise various means to teach them how to communicate symbolically. For example, Elisabeth Mann-Borgese (1965), the daughter of the German novelist Thomas Mann, developed a system that she thought would give dogs the ability to communicate their needs and intentions. The dogs were trained to use a typewriter especially designed for the purpose. Her efforts, as one might guess, were not very successful. Arli, an English setter, the most successful of the dogs she trained, pecked out what appears to be nothing more than meandering and nonsensical "poetry" organized by chance. What is most significant about Mann-Borgese's effort was the use of rather sophisticated instrumental training methods that she developed and used to teach her dog how to type and pick letters on cue. With regard to her other more elevated goals, however, no experimental evidence exists supporting the belief that dogs can learn to use a symbolic language in a way comparable to humans. Although her efforts failed with respect to the use of language in dogs, they did anticipate more recent and successful language learning studies in nonhuman primates.

In the case of dogs, the verbal "messages" they understand are distinctively nonconcep-tual in nature, being more concrete than abstract or symbolic; further, they are acquired through an associative-contextual learning process rather than a conceptual-symbolic one. Associative learning allows dogs to form a variety of connections between vocal signals and other signals, actions, and emotions having more immediate significance and meaning to them (e.g., visual gestures, physical prompts, and tonal variations of the voice).

Ideally, the differential application of tones of voice associated with reward and tones of voice associated with punishment should mediate a precise "dialectical interface" between the trainer and dog. Confusion is prone to develop when training signals are not consistently differentiated or applied. The ordinary quality of verbal exchange between humans is monotonal. This tendency often slips into the manner in which the owner attempts to communicate with his or her dog, sometimes blurring vital tonal distinctions between reward, command, and reprimand signals. When attractive and aver-sive signals are vague or lack explicit tonal differentiation, the potential for confusion or internal conflict between the opposing motivations stimulated by the signals involved is increased.

Similarly, when dogs are punished as the result of following an appropriate command (or rewarded for not responding), opposing expectations are likely to collide destructively. As unlikely as this sort of situation may sound, the habit of such punishment is actually very common among inexperienced dog owners. A familiar situation involving such inappropriate punishment can often be seen during recall training. In this case, dogs are sometimes punished only after they finally come or allow themselves to be caught by the exasperated owners. In other situations, dogs may be punished for coming too slowly. Such punitive interaction not only results in unnecessary stress and conflict but also progressively ruins a dog's willingness to come when called. Many persistent recall problems (unwillingness, hesitation, or slowness) can be analyzed along similar lines of improper punishment. Finally, such punishment sets up difficult-to-reverse internal conflicts about approaching when called (approach-avoidance and avoidance-avoidance conflicts), doing great damage to a dog's readiness to coop erate and thereby perpetuating a vicious cycle of frustration and ineffectual punishment.

Most dog owners at one time or another engage in the practice of noncontingent punishment (see Chapter 8). This problematic habit is especially prevalent in the mismanagement of separation anxiety and with puppies provided too much liberty before they are ready for it. A typical scenario might involve an owner coming home to find that the dog had been destructive in the owner's absence. Angered by the dog's misbehavior, the owner takes him to the spot or article and punishes him. Over time, such punitive interaction may escalate as the owner becomes progressively convinced—and more determined than ever—that the dog is acting spitefully. Alternately, on those occasions when the owner comes home and finds no sign of the offending behavior, the owner is likely to shower the reformed dog with affection and compensatory reassurance. interpreting this turn of events to mean that the treatment had caused the dog to improve its attitude, the owner may feel justified in using the spurious cure. Before too long, though, the hiatus of good behavior will inevitably break down again, setting the stage for another series of futile punitive homecomings.

The interpersonal dynamics of noncontin-gent punishment can be analyzed in terms of experimental neurosis. During the foregoing greeting pattern, the owner is a provider of both attractive stimulation (approach) and aversive stimulation (avoidance) on a contingency not clearly predictable or controllable by the dog. Some days the owner returns home to punish the dog severely, whereas on others (when no evidence of destructiveness is found) the owner offers the dog affection and reassurance. The problem is that neither case is well defined by antecedent signals. The dog does not know which outcome is most likely to occur on any given occasion; neither does the dog know what to do in order to control it—that is, the greeting sequence is both unpredictable and uncontrollable.

The greeting situation is especially problematic because of the intensity of emotional conflict involved. Most dogs are very enthusi astic about seeing their owners after a long absence. The active emotions are intensely affectionate and seek reciprocation—that is, the expectant dog anticipates an equally friendly reply in kind. instead, his sociable efforts are met with an unexpected and aggressive assault, resulting in a collision of violently opposed and conflicted emotions (structurally similar to Wolpe's and Masser-man's procedure reviewed earlier). From the perspective of experimental neurosis, the collision of opposing and mutually incompatible emotional reactions predisposes the dog to develop neurotic conflict. The above homecoming exchange is especially injurious to an emotionally unstable or separation-distressed dog. Carried out over several weeks or months, such interaction may result in the elaboration of neurotic symptomatology, ranging from bizarre approach-avoidance greeting displays to extreme overarousal and hyperactivity. Additionally, affected dogs may exhibit numerous ontologically immature (regressive) displacement activities, compulsive submissive urination, exotic patterns of sham guilt, heightened insecurity, and exaggerated attention-seeking needs. Perhaps most importantly, such treatment contributes to the development of various cognitive generalizations about the unpredictability-uncontrollability of the owner's behavior, thereby planting the seeds for even greater adjustment problems.

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