(no subject)
I've been working on a series of lectures for next semester and it's made me think about how concepts I've known about for a while apply in how people interact with horses. It also relates to something I've been wanting to post about for a while: why do people apologise for being "soft" with their horse, and why do people congratulate them for "getting tough"?
The Actor-Observer Bias - what an off-putting name! It's not something that I've ever thought about applying across species before, but today I'm going to have a go. When people talk about how bad their horses are, they frequently blame the situation. If only I could have access to a better trainer, or if only the horse hadn't been mistreated, or if only I could ride every day. All my problems would be over!
Strangely, though, when they look at other people, what they see is the effect of personality: "her horse is fine because he's just a naturally laid back horse", "she never has any problems because she's just naturally talented with horses". This also works when they see the other person having the same problems they do: "my horse is impossible to handle in the stable because I haven't been able to sort out a proper livery situation" but "her horse is impossible in the stable because she's just too soft with it".
There are aspects of this that reflect on each person's belief about how the world works, but overall, it's a way of making yourself feel better. I do it myself - Jackson bucks because he's still very unbalanced, it's nothing to do with my skill as a rider or my weak and laissez-faire attitude with him.
I guess I have two points - first, other people may be doing well despite their horse's innate quirks because they're doing something right. And second, it probably doesn't help to attribute how things are going to anything at all - you might as well just work out what the problem is, and then find a solution. A good start would be to look at what you're doing and think to yourself that it might just not be working.
Another nice little bias is people's ability to criticise what other people do with their horses on the basis that their world view doesn't agree with yours. So their horse is acting a little strangely (but not badly) because it's testing them or is bored with what they are doing with it. Oddly, your own horse's terrible behaviour is just something you have to put up with, because you have the horse with the worst personality in the world (but nothing you do with them is boring and your approach is fine :-)).
Jackson is not perfect at the moment. He's pretty close, though, and hasn't changed. The problem is mine. The small behavioural blip he's exhibiting at the moment is one that frustrates me - he is napping, very slightly, on hacks. To be exact, he is stopping and not walking on when we are heading home. I time my hacks in the early morning so that I can get into work, and when I'm 3 minutes from home and my horse is playing statues in the middle of the road, I feel rather frustrated. I feel especially frustrated since my reactions are to kick, hit or generally "get after him".
Oh no! It's another bias - called Hyperbolic discounting. We all prefer an immediate payoff - even if it's small - over a larger one we have to wait for. So we find that hitting our horse works really well at making it go - but then we wonder, a few weeks down the line, why our horse doesn't want to leave the field and runs off when they see the saddle. No action exists in a vacuum - if you are sufficiently insistent and your horse submits, you chalk it up as a success, but you completely fail to see how that will affect everything else you do with him.
So I'm continuing to be soft on Jackson. If he stops, he has a reason. He does not stop on the way out, and when he does stop on the way home, if I turn him around and hack back out again, he's fine. Something is making him anxious about returning to the field and it's up to me to find out what it is, because it's certainly going to affect other things I do with him.
In the meantime, I'm fine with getting off and leading, and have no outdated belief that, in a battle of wills, he's won. Battles and wars aren't good situations around horses - firstly, they're not fighting us, they're fighting something they perceive as scary. If we escalate, they do too and the battle becomes a war. If we don't turn a situation into a conflict, we have time to work out what's going on.
In the meantime, Jackson has learned to leg yield. The first time he did a little step to one side, I celebrated. Then it was no longer an accident, he would leg yield perfectly from the middle of the road to the verge. It took a little longer for the leg yield from the verge to the middle to click, but now we can move out, move in, with lovely crossing over of legs (and a little bend when going from left to right).
Jackson has also learned how to do gates - meriting a big smile from a local farmer yesterday when he saw us walk calmly up to a gate, unlatch it, walk through and turn to close it again. I just wish the gates were a bit higher up - leaning down far enough to get at the latch from Jackson's back is not easy!
Same pic as last week for a few day, though, because the digital camera has repeated its trick of last year and died, just as the cold weather sets in.
The Actor-Observer Bias - what an off-putting name! It's not something that I've ever thought about applying across species before, but today I'm going to have a go. When people talk about how bad their horses are, they frequently blame the situation. If only I could have access to a better trainer, or if only the horse hadn't been mistreated, or if only I could ride every day. All my problems would be over!
Strangely, though, when they look at other people, what they see is the effect of personality: "her horse is fine because he's just a naturally laid back horse", "she never has any problems because she's just naturally talented with horses". This also works when they see the other person having the same problems they do: "my horse is impossible to handle in the stable because I haven't been able to sort out a proper livery situation" but "her horse is impossible in the stable because she's just too soft with it".
There are aspects of this that reflect on each person's belief about how the world works, but overall, it's a way of making yourself feel better. I do it myself - Jackson bucks because he's still very unbalanced, it's nothing to do with my skill as a rider or my weak and laissez-faire attitude with him.
I guess I have two points - first, other people may be doing well despite their horse's innate quirks because they're doing something right. And second, it probably doesn't help to attribute how things are going to anything at all - you might as well just work out what the problem is, and then find a solution. A good start would be to look at what you're doing and think to yourself that it might just not be working.
Another nice little bias is people's ability to criticise what other people do with their horses on the basis that their world view doesn't agree with yours. So their horse is acting a little strangely (but not badly) because it's testing them or is bored with what they are doing with it. Oddly, your own horse's terrible behaviour is just something you have to put up with, because you have the horse with the worst personality in the world (but nothing you do with them is boring and your approach is fine :-)).
Jackson is not perfect at the moment. He's pretty close, though, and hasn't changed. The problem is mine. The small behavioural blip he's exhibiting at the moment is one that frustrates me - he is napping, very slightly, on hacks. To be exact, he is stopping and not walking on when we are heading home. I time my hacks in the early morning so that I can get into work, and when I'm 3 minutes from home and my horse is playing statues in the middle of the road, I feel rather frustrated. I feel especially frustrated since my reactions are to kick, hit or generally "get after him".
Oh no! It's another bias - called Hyperbolic discounting. We all prefer an immediate payoff - even if it's small - over a larger one we have to wait for. So we find that hitting our horse works really well at making it go - but then we wonder, a few weeks down the line, why our horse doesn't want to leave the field and runs off when they see the saddle. No action exists in a vacuum - if you are sufficiently insistent and your horse submits, you chalk it up as a success, but you completely fail to see how that will affect everything else you do with him.
So I'm continuing to be soft on Jackson. If he stops, he has a reason. He does not stop on the way out, and when he does stop on the way home, if I turn him around and hack back out again, he's fine. Something is making him anxious about returning to the field and it's up to me to find out what it is, because it's certainly going to affect other things I do with him.
In the meantime, I'm fine with getting off and leading, and have no outdated belief that, in a battle of wills, he's won. Battles and wars aren't good situations around horses - firstly, they're not fighting us, they're fighting something they perceive as scary. If we escalate, they do too and the battle becomes a war. If we don't turn a situation into a conflict, we have time to work out what's going on.
In the meantime, Jackson has learned to leg yield. The first time he did a little step to one side, I celebrated. Then it was no longer an accident, he would leg yield perfectly from the middle of the road to the verge. It took a little longer for the leg yield from the verge to the middle to click, but now we can move out, move in, with lovely crossing over of legs (and a little bend when going from left to right).
Jackson has also learned how to do gates - meriting a big smile from a local farmer yesterday when he saw us walk calmly up to a gate, unlatch it, walk through and turn to close it again. I just wish the gates were a bit higher up - leaning down far enough to get at the latch from Jackson's back is not easy!
Same pic as last week for a few day, though, because the digital camera has repeated its trick of last year and died, just as the cold weather sets in.