Reading through my Udemy psychology course I have got to the part about Cognitive-Dissonance Theory. This may explain why some people may be uncomfortable with the How Animal Learn course.
Where there is a discrepancy between behaviours and beliefs/attitudes there is dissonance. So people reduce this dissonance by avoiding the behaviour or changing attitudes.
Asking why you do what you do creates opportunites for recognising inconsistencies and you try to find ways to avoid these inconsistencies.
So people try and expain away behaviours (ways of training) which they have just heard are not in the animals best interest and so justify their actions.
Or they change what they do to restore consistency and avoid the dissonance.
All the course does is to present the scientific facts, it is up to us as individuals to decide whether the way we train our animals fits in wth this.
My journey to more positive training.
Positive Horsemanship. 