Positive Partial Reinforcement

17-05-2022

At one time or another, we’ve all wondered, “Why are people I’m interested in not interested in me? And people I ignore keep contacting me?” It would be statistically unlikely, if not impossible, that every time you like someone you don’t feel the same way and vice versa. So what is really going on here? Is this some sick joke from the Universe?

I would like to introduce you to your new best friend when it comes to solving this dilemma and that is: Positive Partial Reinforcement (PPR). This is a psychological term in which the reward is not given every time the desired action is performed.

The effectiveness of PPR is the cornerstone of Vegas. People stay at the slots or the tables because they only get rewarded at random intervals. If they were never rewarded, they would soon give up. If they were always rewarded, they would eventually get bored and move on.

In one experiment, a pigeon that received a random reward for pecking a button during a one-minute interval continued to peck for more than three hours without reward.

Naturally, you do this with the person you are not interested in: you see or talk to them when it suits you. You throw them a bone from time to time, but you don’t go out of your way for them. These are the people who end up being crazy about you. You are witnessing the effects of PPR.

However, the person you are interested in makes you available, talk to them for hours on the phone, return text messages immediately, etc. These are the people you always seem to have to work so hard to get!

It is the things you are doing, your behavior, that determine the level of interest of the other person. So how can you apply PPR to the person you are crazy about? Follow these simple rules:

AVAILABILITY: may not always be available. By always being available, you lower your value. It is human nature not to appreciate something that is always there. When you like someone, of course you want to see them as much as possible, so you make yourself available, that’s the kiss of death! Do the opposite. This keeps him from feeling satiated and keeps him wanting, and that’s where you want them.

BEHAVIOR – Think about how you behave when you don’t like someone and behave that way with the person you like. When you don’t care, you take your time returning calls, texts, and emails. Sometimes you even ignore texts and emails and don’t reply. You can even get mad at them if they text too much!

ATTITUDE – When you like someone, your attitude is: I have to have this person. When you’re not that interested, you naturally hang back and have a wait-and-see attitude. You think: We’ll see what happens; maybe they will grow on me. It is this attitude and previous behavior that makes you more attractive.

One thing people get wrong is that they think they have to mistreat the other person. Do not!! While you want to practice limiting your availability, having a wait-and-see attitude, and throwing doubt into the mix, you have to treat the person well. People like you for how they feel when they are with you. So praise, appreciate and praise, just don’t seem too eager to see them.

People find it difficult to do this: they think that the other will be angry if they reject them or if they end the date early, while with the person they are not interested in, they do not care if they get angry.

PPR is not an easy thing to do because you naturally want to see/talk to your crush; it doesn’t feel natural to avoid them, not see them and/or not talk to them every time they want to see or talk to you.

One way to make it easier for yourself is to see other people. Don’t tell me you can’t! If you want to improve your chances with the one you really want, then you absolutely have to do this.

You can stop using PPR once the person you love has declared their love for you. However, you can always bring it back, if you feel that they are starting to take you for granted.

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