Pavlovian Conditioning In Brave New World
Society holds many ways to control one’s actions and thoughts. Through behavioral conditioning humans learn to thrive on their teacher’s ideals. Science and literature have both aided in the development of associative learning such as Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World. Behavioral conditioning, a vital part of today’s society, helps develop a child’s ability to learn; however, when taken to new extremes as displayed in Brave New World, it destroys individuality by pre determining one’s future. Behavioral conditioning is a process in which an organism learns a specific behavior through various trials and methods. Classical or pavlovian conditioning was first discovered by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov and relies on stimulus and response.
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At eight months old the infants are taught to hate books and flowers by the nurses delivering electric shocks and sirens when the children approach the objects. The infants will “Grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned.” (Huxley 22) In today’s world negative reinforcement is a similar form of behavioral conditioning. Instead of rewarding a desired behavior like in typical pavlovian conditioning, negative stimuli disciplines an unwanted behavior. Humans must learn that “There are two types of negative reinforcement: escape and avoidance. In general, the learner must first learn to escape before he or she learns to avoid”. ( Huitt, W., & Hummel, J) Moreover, if a child receives trauma each time he or she acts in a certain manner or completes a specific task, the child’s first response will be to escape, and eventually he or she will learn to avoid the task or behavior all together. As generations of neo- pavlovian conditioning children continues there will be no sense of the individual. Each person will have the same fears, insecurities, and even emotions as their neighbor. The next step of behavioral conditioning teaches children to think with impeccable
At eight months old the infants are taught to hate books and flowers by the nurses delivering electric shocks and sirens when the children approach the objects. The infants will “Grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned.” (Huxley 22) In today’s world negative reinforcement is a similar form of behavioral conditioning. Instead of rewarding a desired behavior like in typical pavlovian conditioning, negative stimuli disciplines an unwanted behavior. Humans must learn that “There are two types of negative reinforcement: escape and avoidance. In general, the learner must first learn to escape before he or she learns to avoid”. ( Huitt, W., & Hummel, J) Moreover, if a child receives trauma each time he or she acts in a certain manner or completes a specific task, the child’s first response will be to escape, and eventually he or she will learn to avoid the task or behavior all together. As generations of neo- pavlovian conditioning children continues there will be no sense of the individual. Each person will have the same fears, insecurities, and even emotions as their neighbor. The next step of behavioral conditioning teaches children to think with impeccable