LRS

I just read an interesting article in this month's issue of Wired magazine, an often very interesting publication.  In the article the author was commenting on a business book that suggested using a concept used by animal trainers, known as Least Reinforcing Scenario — LRS for short — to train your boss.  

Setting that idea aside, I find LRS an intriguing concept.  Animal trainers use it in a situation where the animal is behaving in a manner that is undesirable and any response, negative or otherwise, would actually reinforce the behavior.  Often the trainer will simply ignore the behavior and act like they didn't see it or, at the very least, that they simple don't care.  Often the animal will not repeat the behavior because they did not get the response they desired.  

There is no doubt that LRS can easily be applied to our own human interactions.  My wife uses it on me all the time.  I was unaware that she knew about LRS, but obviously she has known about it for some time.  On rare occasions, I will try to get her to laugh when I know that I have done something that has made her unhappy.  Since I am a very funny person (anyone who knows me could tell you that I am one of the funnies persons around) it has always amazed me that no matter what I do in these situations — no matter what funny face, absurd gesture, crazy dance or foolish antic — she simply stares at me as if she could care less.  Any normal person would have laughed, cried or at least yelled at my to get out of the room, but not a person deviously utilizing LRS.  Now that I know that she has been secretly using this training strategy, I perhaps can deploy it on my own!