FREE ESSAY ON CONDITIONING

CONDITIONING

Conditioning and It's Effects
For my paper I wanted to examine the idea of conditioning and focus mainly on the
emotional aspect of it.
Continuing affects us in several ways. Most the time, in ways we are not fully
aware of. One of the more indirect ways is emotionally. I have a close friend, who we'll
call Jordan for reasons of privacy, who seems to be deathly afraid of medicine. While I
find this fear irrational and unrealistic, he finds it extremely real and sometimes
disturbing.
Until recently I saw no real problem with his fear, but a strange thing happened
and I found myself trying to analyze and almost diagnose what had happened. Due to
some sort of food poisoning, he was forced to be taken into the local emergency room. 
His reaction to the food he had eaten seemed to be serious and upon arrival, the first
thing
the nurse did was place an IV in his arm. Immediately his fear of medicine came into
play. Though the IV was different than the medicine he was normally afraid of, the IV
fell into a category I believe to be a "stimulus generalization." A stimulus
generalization
is defined as the occurrence of a learned response not only to the original stimulus,
but
to the other similar stimuli as well. His conditioned response to antibiotics in the
past,
became a conditioned reaction to all forms of medicine. Jordan acted out the way anyone
would to such a fear. He began screaming at the nurse, and tearing at the needle in his
arm. After later recalling the incident, he told me that it bothered him even more than
taking a pill that they were putting things directly into his blood stream. I was
interested
by the whole incident and became determined to find the psychological reasons behind
his response. As you read this, bare in mind that I am not a psychologist nor a
scientist,
so if I am far off in my conclusions, forgive me.
I began by analyzing Jordan's past life experiences and applied them to the many
concepts I had recently learned in psychology. I immediately noticed a direct
correlation
between his past experience and the idea of conditioning. I now believe that Jordan has
a
conditioned response to the idea of taking medicine, that makes him fearful of the
results
it will have on his body.
As a child Jordan had several severe cases of strep throat, a common illness in
both children and adults. Each time he was prescribed with different types of
antibiotics
and cough syrups. He is allergic to penicillin, a popular ingredient in many antibiotics.

Because of this he was forced to take only liquid antibiotics which caused his initial
dislike towards medicine. The medicine was both sticky and thick. The horrible tasting
medicine, he recalled, always caused him to gag. As he continued taking the prescription
he noticed that the medicine didn't settle well in his stomach which eventually made him
vomit. I believe this is what conditioned him to respond the way he does now to
medicine.
In a sense, the form of conditioning that caused his extreme dislike in taking
medicine is "operant conditioning." Operant conditioning is defined as the basic
learning process that involves changing the probability of a response being repeated by
manipulating the consequences of that response. The consequences of Jordan "not"
taking the medicine was "not" vomiting, which he deemed as VERY positive
reinforcement.
Though I believe Jordan is conditioned not to take medicine, he admits there are
extreme cases where he would be willing to take them. This has to do with the idea of
punishment. He accepts the notion that when a person refuses to take medicine, chances
are, their symptoms will increase. Even with this realization he still vows to avoid
medicine as much as possible.
As a person goes through life, they rarely question the reasons why they react to a
certain stimulus the way they do. Most behavior patterns are formed through some sort of
conditioning. Jordan is a key example of this. A series of events early in his childhood
conditioned him to act a certain way. He said that maybe one day he will be able to
overcome his fear, but for now it doesn't affect him enough to change his ways. 
In conclusion I believe that nearly all behavior patterns are formed through some
sort of conditioning. Jordan was not born disliking medicine. It was a characteristic he
acquired as he aged. it was something he was conditioned to dislike. this is one of the
main reasons some of the most prominent psychologists in history believe that any
healthy person can be conditioned to do anything or act any certain way, despite having
the talent. By being aware of this, I believe that we can become the people we want to
be
and do the things that we want to do if we condition ourselves correctly.