THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK

​I've been recveiving great and constructinve feedback from one-one / relationship clients, group courses, offices and schools and I've been keeping it here. The Play-Shops seem to be utterly adored, as demonstrated in Laughter Yoga in mid February and the video below shows how people felt about the Platonic touch play-shop on Valentines day:

THE IMPORTANCE OF FEEDBACK
It makes me think of the importance of feedback and positive reinforcement, as I'm currently reading 'Don't Shoot the Dog' by Karen Pryor, which is all about how operant conditioning used in dogs, horses and dolphins (very hard to punish a dolphin) can create astounding behaviour and easy shaping of desired behaviour and how this translate to human interaction. 

TYPES OF FEEDBACK
You see, whether we like it or not we all shape and influence each other, consciously and unconsciously every day, with our feedback, or lack of. Sales people are experts! 

We are social animals and we live and thrive on feedback. Feedback can come in many forms:

• Sensation in the body: your emotions, touch, temperature and internal movements
• Awareness of outside stimuli: sight, sound, taste, touch and smell,
• Understanding of stimuli: Language, interpretation of meaning in stimuli. 

These first two become the job of mindfulness. This last point is just as important though - because reality is not just what you feel, touch, see and smell, but it is all perceived through the lens of your understanding- your thinking mind - or ego. The  ego is who you think you are, your interpretation of how the world is, based on previous experience or upon innate instincts. 

​So because we base our reality on the way we believe the world works when we get feedback that feels nice immediately after exhibiting a behaviour it reinforces our desire to keep doing that behaviour. This is known as POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT. 

And visa-versa if positive reinforcement is removed or we receive feedback that feels bad we sometimes decide to change the behaviour. This is known as NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT. 

RATIO OF POSITIVE : NEGATIVE
Neither are good or bad, but studies have shown that we can achieve so much more with positive reinforcement than negative. Appreciation and positive feedback (like a smile or thank you) also makes the giver and receiver FEEL better (assuming it is genuine feedback). There is a theory that a ratio of 5 positive to 1 negative reinforcements lead to optimum shaping of behaviour.

INTENTIONS
The intention behind the shaping is a question of ethics, but that is a whole other can-of-worms worth thinking about. On the whole you know your own intentions are noble and it is usually clear when someone has a 'needy' or egoic intention behind reinforcing behaviour. Encouraging someone because you like seeing them happy is a simple loving intention, whereas rewarding someone to get something back, or to manipulate them into an obligation is coercive and fear-based.

CONSENT
In giving direct and specific feedback with humans it's often a good idea to check in first, o see if it is wanted. For more information about the nuance of feedback check out this blog about COMMUNICATION. 

SELF REINFORCEMENT
As well as reinforcing each other we also reinforce ourselves with the way we think or talk about ourselves -  so perhaps you are using more negative reinforcer (fear, shame, negative language) and you could switch to more positive reinforcement (rewarding and appreciating behaviour that is in line with what you really want). This is a subtle game and the first step is to raise your awareness of your behaviour and your current self-conditioning style. For true awareness we must take time to fully accept our current position also, which often means forgiving yourself or others for some of the conditioning styles you've received so far. We let go of the emotions and start to move forward, more positively. This is what I teach in Mindfulness classes, loving awareness. 

Once you have awareness we then practice positive psychology to shape our thinking and actions in accordance with what we want. This is what the second half of the lesson I teach is about : the tools and nuance understanding of positive psychology and how it can be applied to your life and in communication with others.

So - keep the feedback coming; positive and negative - it all helps me to improve the way I do things!

To learn more about this come to mindfulness classes on Wednesday evenings or mindful communication classes on Thursday nights.