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Psychological Conditioning In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

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Psychological conditioning is one of the most controlling studies of science. It is the theory that most learning revolves around programmed reactions to certain stimuli. An incentive for a certain action, for example, will encourage continuation of that same action even when the incentive is eventually gone. Being able to perfect this science would prove that the human mind can be solved and manipulated. One of the most popular pieces in literature giving a position on psychological conditioning is Aldous Huxley’s satirical fiction novel, Brave New World. The author takes a strong position, imagining a world with a society completely subjected to psychological conditioning, with people having their life and jobs predetermined to make for a more stable society. Numerous …show more content…

Pavlov developed the theory of Classical Conditioning. This is where certain stimuli can invoke particular behavior. He conducted his experiments on dogs, testing whether or not he could condition them to salivate at the sound of a bell. At first, along with the bell, he would hold up food, causing the dogs to salivate. After repeating this action numerous times, Pavlov would ring the bell without the food and found that the dogs would still salivate. The food acted as a positive stimulus to warrant a certain behavior while an unconditioned stimulus paired with it over time brought the same result. Brave New World portrays this, but instead of dogs, babies are conditioned. Also, instead of a positive stimulus, a negative one is used. For example, the babies are shown a flower. Paired with this is a mild electric shock. Similar to the food and the bell, overtime the babies associate the rose with the electric shock, developing an innate fear of nature (Because looking at nature makes you think and thinking could lead to individuality which can lead to

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