So let’s talk about conditioned behavior. The modern definition of conditioning is “to have an effect upon/to determine”. Interestingly enough, the latin roots come from “condicere” or rather “to agree upon”. I say interesting because for conditioning to be successful there has to be an affected party. If Skinner’s mouse didn’t press the lever – he wouldn’t have been conditioned. If Pavlov’s dog didn’t salivate – again no conditioning. Conditioning takes two to tango.
So what makes us vulnerable to conditioning? As we’ve said, the core function of the brain is to survive. Secondary to that is the desire to move towards pleasure & move away from harm. But the ultimate “pleasure” is survival. So anything that makes us feel our survival is at risk will cause us to recontextualize everything around us.
For example, our ancestral brains are wired to be in a group. Obviously survival in numbers was easier 20.000 years ago than just the lone wolf winging it in the wild. So being in the group is innately important to the brain. Anything that makes us feel we are being rejected by the tribe, or could potentially be threatened with rejection, will cause us to adjust our thinking/behavior.
Security is another element directly linked to survival. And while our evolved brain may comprehend the idea of “I’ll be ok” when the ability to afford the things that provide us security are threatened, the fight/flight system is activated & all we know is that we’re losing what we had (i.e. now less secure). This potential threat is enough to get us to behave accordingly.
Remember that the youngest part of our brain is the logical/rational mind. So while reading this information you may say, I would never fall for a trick like that. Ultimately we are beings who need. We need food. We need shelter. We need contact. And we will do what we need to in order to supply those needs. And our survivalist brain will shut down our logic if it needs to. Unless, of course, you’ve conditioned yourself to be aware of your conditioning.
We must also remember that the logic mind is not full developed until we reach age 20-25. That’s 20 years of you absorbing input from around you without being fully consciously able to logically analyze whether or not what you’re being told is contextually accurate. What this means is that a lot of your thinking is the product of other people’s experience & beliefs. Some founded – others that they, in turn inherited. We’ll look at these next.
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