In the world of combat shooting, adaptation isn’t just a bonus—it’s a necessity. While repetition builds baseline skill, true tactical readiness demands flexibility, improvisation, and creativity under stress. A 1985 study by Suzanne Page and Allen Neuringer, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, sheds unexpected but crucial light on this dynamic. The paper, provocatively titled “Variability Is an Operant,” argues that behavioral variability can be shaped and reinforced—just like any other skill.
At ABA Intl, where we develop performance-based, metric-driven training for combat professionals, this insight is more than academic. It’s foundational.
What Did the Study Show?
Using pigeons as experimental subjects, Page and Neuringer explored whether variability itself—the tendency to behave differently from trial to trial—could be reinforced directly.
They set up a simple but clever scenario: the pigeons were trained to peck left and right keys in eight-step sequences. A reward (food) was given only if the new sequence differed from previous ones. As the rules became stricter—demanding that the sequence differ not just from the last trial, but from the last five, ten, or even fifty—the pigeons adapted, producing increasingly complex and diverse sequences.
Crucially, when reinforcement was no longer contingent on variation (i.e., when pigeons were rewarded at the same rate regardless of their behavior), variability dropped significantly. In other words, the animals learned to vary their responses on purpose, not by chance.
Why This Matters for Combat Training
In high-stress tactical environments, rigid repetition can become a liability. A shooter who reacts the same way to every situation is vulnerable the moment variables change: an unexpected threat angle, a weapon malfunction, a low-light environment. Adaptability saves lives.
What the study confirms is that variability itself is a skill that can be trained, not merely an incidental byproduct of randomness or creativity. This supports what ABA Intl teaches in our TMM Triad—the interplay of Technique, Metrics, and Method. Our training goes beyond rote repetition and instead develops shooters who:
- Recognize when their standard technique no longer fits,
- Generate new solutions in real time,
- Retain the ability to vary their actions consciously and effectively under pressure.
Variability Is Not Randomness
A key takeaway from the experiments is that trained variability is not chaos. The pigeons weren’t just pressing keys at random—they learned to produce variation in a way that maximized reward. Similarly, in tactical shooting, we don’t want randomness; we want controlled, intelligent deviation from patterns when the situation demands it.
This parallels our use of performance metrics at ABA Intl. Through structured variation (such as randomized drills, stress inoculation, and scenario changes), we reinforce decision-making pathways that prepare the shooter for unpredictability—not with luck, but with competence.
Stimulus Control and Tactical Contexts
In their final experiment, Page and Neuringer introduced colored lights: red meant “vary your behavior,” and blue meant “repeat a fixed sequence.” The pigeons quickly learned the difference. This shows that contextual cues can be used to modulate variability, a concept that applies directly to force-on-force training, light/dark transitions, role-based instruction, and more.
At ABA Intl, we employ similar principles. Whether on the range or in urban simulations, we use stimuli to cue context-appropriate behavior—reinforcing either discipline and precision or improvisation and problem-solving.
Tactical Variability Can Be Trained
The study confirms what the battlefield has long taught: the most valuable operants are not always the most rigid. Page and Neuringer proved that behavioral flexibility is not innate—it’s trainable. At ABA Intl, we’ve built an entire methodology around this principle.
We no longer train simply to hit the target.
We train to solve the problem.
And sometimes, that means breaking the pattern.
