Monday, October 19, 2009

Classical Conditioning in Grandma's Birthday Cards AND A Clockwork Orange?

So, I was going home for fall break on Friday afternoon. On the plane, I happened to open up the American Way magazine and what do I see in the beginning of the AirMail section? "We love letters. Maybe it’s because our grandmas always used to tape a quarter to our birthday cards when we were little and we now have this Pavlovian thing going on." I thought this was hilarious, because we just learned about Pavlov in Psychology! However, if you're unfamiliar with Pavlov's idea of Classical Conditioning, which focuses on changing behavior, here's a simple breakdown using the example above:

BEFORE "CONDITIONING":



The Unconditioned Stimulus, or Pavlov's term for something that initiates an automatic response was the birthday cards in the mail, and the Unconditioned (automatic) Response was happiness because it always feels nice to get a card on your birthday, especially from your grandma.

DURING "CONDITIONING":
+Grandma sent them birthday cards in the mail with the Conditioned Stimulus, a quarter, so they were doubly happy whenever they received Grandma's birthday cards because of the quarter inside which they could use to buy something (a yummy piece of candy perhaps).

AFTER "CONDITIONING":


Now, after many years and many birthday cards from Grandma, every time they receive
any letter in the mail, the Conditioned Response of super happiness is initiated.
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In the famous movie A Clockwork Orange, a young man Alex leads a hedonistic lifestyle without regards for the rules of society, raping women and robbing homes. Eventually though, he is caught for murdering a woman, and is sent to jail. In order to shorten his sentence, Alex persuades his superiors to let him participate in an experimental trial called the Ludovico treatment. The underlying idea of the Ludovico treatment is Pavlov's classical conditioning.

BEFORE "CONDITIONING":
SEXUAL AND/OR VIOLENT IMPULSES
ALEX COMMITS SEXUAL AND/OR VIOLENT ACTS AND


Before Alex was jailed, when Alex was confronted with violent and sexual impulses, the Unconditioned Stimulus, he automatically followed through with these impulses and committed violent and sexual acts, the Unconditioned Response.
(The medicine used in the Ludovico Technique is also an Unconditioned Stimulus, and when someone is given this "medicine," their body will have an Unconditioned Response of extreme nausea.)

DURING "CONDITIONING":
+ IMAGES OF VIOLENCE AND RAPE
During the Ludovico treatment, Alex was repeatedly shown many images of violence and rape, which would usually create a sense of happiness in Alex. However, each time that he saw these images Alex was also given the medicine, the Conditioned Stimulus, which caused him to be almost physically paralyzed with an overall feeling of nauseousness.

AFTER "CONDITIONING":
SEXUAL AND OR VIOLENT IMPULSES


After the Ludovico treatment, when he was released into the real world, any time Alex got the urge to commit a violent or sexual act, he was immediately gripped with the extreme nauseousness even though he had long been without the Ludovico medicine. In other worlds, whenever Alex begins to have a sexual or violent impulse, his body begins to feel extremely nauseous, the Conditioned Response.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, I didn't know the images would be so big when it published, when I was working on them they were in nice little rows! :(

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