Respondent Behaviors

Respondent behaviors are involuntary, reflexive behaviors triggered by specific psychological states. These are behaviors like flinching, fight/flight/freeze, swallowing, heart rate increase or decrease, respiration increase or decrease, grimace, etc... Our nervous system communicates to our body how we are feeling and how we should respond to that feeling, without us ever even having to think about it. This gives us both an "Unconditioned Stimulus" (a thing we know how we feel about) and an "Unconditioned Response" (what we know to do about it).

If we touch a hot stove (the heat is an Unconditioned Stimulus), our body feels the pain, the pain triggers specific parts of our nervous system, which inform our brain that pain is happening and we need to act fast to make it stop! All this happens in a split second and we flinch away from the heat (the flinch is the Unconditioned Response). We did not need to learn the pain is bad and we should rush away from it, but we do need to learn that the stove, when on, is hot and causes pain (the turned on stove becomes a Conditioned Stimulus).

This is the difference between an unconditioned and a conditioned emotional response. Unconditioned responses are things our mind and body know how to deal with without us ever being told or shown. Things like sudden, loud noises, startle us. No one told us we should be afraid of them, our bodies know.

Conditioned Stimulus are things we learn have the same meaning as an unconditioned stimulus. So like the hot stove. We may even touch a stove and flinch away, even when it's not on or hot. Because we have learned that that is the appropriate response when accidentally touching a stove.

When we think of this with horse training/care, its important to remember that these things are INVOLUNTARY, they aren't under the horse's control! They are instinctive, inherent, reflexive, they can be stifled through force or punishment, or reconditioned through learning, but this reflex will always be inside the horse and will always be an option their body will want to choose in these scenarios. If a balloon pops in the room, the horse has no more control than you do over their startle response