Classical Conditioning in the Social Imagination...

 

 

*The text below has been pasted here for your reading pleasure... check out the provided online source.

Pavlov’s Famous Study

The best-known of Pavlov’s experiments involves the study of the salivation of dogs. Pavlov was originally studying the saliva of dogs as it related to digestion, but as he conducted his research, he noticed that the dogs would begin to salivate every time he entered the room—even if he had no food. The dogs were associating his entrance into the room with being fed. This led Pavlov to design a series of experiments in which he used various sound objects, such as a buzzer, to condition the salivation response in dogs.

He started by sounding a buzzer each time food was given to the dogs and found that the dogs would start salivating immediately after hearing the buzzer—even before seeing the food. After a period of time, Pavlov began sounding the buzzer without giving any food at all and found that the dogs continued to salivate at the sound of the buzzer even in the absence of food. They had learned to associate the sound of the buzzer with being fed.

If we look at Pavlov’s experiment, we can identify the four factors of classical conditioning at work:

• The unconditioned response was the dogs’ natural salivation in response to seeing or smelling their food.
• The unconditioned stimulus was the sight or smell of the food itself.
• The conditioned stimulus was the ringing of the bell, which previously had no association with food.
• The conditioned response, therefore, was the salivation of the dogs in response to the ringing of the bell, even when no food was present.

Pavlov had successfully associated an unconditioned response (natural salivation in response to food) with a conditioned stimulus (a buzzer), eventually creating a conditioned response (salivation in response to a buzzer). With these results, Pavlov established his theory of classical conditioning.

Neurological Response to Conditioning

Consider how the conditioned response occurs in the brain. When a dog sees food, the visual and olfactory stimuli send information to the brain through their respective neural pathways, ultimately activating the salivation glands to secrete saliva. This reaction is a natural biological process as saliva aids in the digestion of food. When a dog hears a buzzer and at the same time sees food, the auditory stimulus activates the associated neural pathways. However, because these pathways are being activated at the same time as the other neural pathways, there are weak synapse reactions that occur between the auditory stimulus and the behavioral response. Over time, these synapses are strengthened so that it only takes the sound of a buzzer (or a bell) to activate the pathway leading to salivation.

Behaviorism and Other Research

Pavlov’s research contributed to other studies and theories in behaviorism, which is an approach to psychology interested in observable behaviors rather than the inner workings of the mind. The philosopher Bertrand Russell argued that Pavlov’s work was an important contribution to a philosophy of mind. Pavlov’s research also contributed to Hans Eysench’s personality theory of introversion and extroversion. Eysench built upon Pavlov’s research on dogs, hypothesizing that the differences in arousal that the dogs displayed was due to inborn genetic differences. Eysench then extended the research to human personality traits.

Pavlov’s research further led to the development of important behavior-therapy techniques, such as flooding and desensitizing, for individuals who struggle with fear and anxiety. Desensitizing is a kind of reverse conditioning in which an individual is repeatedly exposed to the thing that is causing the anxiety. Flooding is similar in that it exposes an individual to the thing causing the anxiety, but it does so in a more intense and prolonged way.

Classical Conditioning in Humans

The influence of classical conditioning can be seen in responses such as phobias, disgust, nausea, anger, and sexual arousal. A familiar example is conditioned nausea, in which the sight or smell of a particular food causes nausea because it caused stomach upset in the past. Similarly, when the sight of a dog has been associated with a memory of being bitten, the result may be a conditioned fear of dogs.

As an adaptive mechanism, conditioning helps shield an individual from harm or prepare them for important biological events, such as sexual activity. Thus, a stimulus that has occurred before sexual interaction comes to cause sexual arousal, which prepares the individual for sexual contact. For example, sexual arousal has been conditioned in human subjects by pairing a stimulus like a picture of a jar of pennies with views of an erotic film clip. Similar experiments involving blue gourami fish and domesticated quail have shown that such conditioning can increase the number of offspring. These results suggest that conditioning techniques might help to increase fertility rates in infertile individuals and endangered species.

Classical Conditioning in Everyday Life

Classical conditioning is used not only in therapeutic interventions, but in everyday life as well. Advertising executives, for example, are adept at applying the principles of associative learning. Think about the car commercials you have seen on television: many of them feature an attractive model. By associating the model with the car being advertised, you come to see the car as being desirable (Cialdini, 2008). You may be asking yourself, does this advertising technique actually work? According to Cialdini (2008), men who viewed a car commercial that included an attractive model later rated the car as being faster, more appealing, and better designed than did men who viewed an advertisement for the same car without the model.

 Are you being conditioned, like a dog, to get jabbed and who knows what else? 

FYI, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, earned a doctorate in the biotechnology of reproduction at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki's Veterinary School in 1985. Bourla joined Pfizer in 1993, first serving as a doctor of veterinary medicine and technical director for the company's animal health division in Greece...Who's dog are you? Just askin...

*ONLINE SOURCE ~  https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/classical-conditioning/

Propoganda in the Social Imagination~ Yes, we can do it...

 

 

Propaganda - Goebbels' Principles...

Joseph Goebbels

Dr. Joseph Goebbels, beside being an intriguing character, was the Propaganda Minister for Hitler's Third Reich. He was recognized as a master of propaganda as his work was studied after WWII. Goebbels did not survive to enjoy the recognition; he and his wife committed suicide on 1 May 1945, a week before the final collapse of the Third Reich.

After the war, US personnel discovered a very large diary dictated by Goebbels. In it are his principles of propaganda. Leonard Doob's 1950 article details them from a translation of the diary by Louis Lochner (1948).

Hitler's Basic Principles

These principles are abstracted from Jowett & O'Donnell.

• Avoid abstract ideas - appeal to the emotions.
• Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases.
• Give only one side of the argument.
• Continuously criticize your opponents.
• Pick out one special "enemy" for special vilification.

Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda

When reading these propaganda principles, keep in mind that they were applied in wartime (WWII) and involve issues that don't arise otherwise. It's a long list, but Goebbels was dealing with the complexity of an all-out war. While reading them you may realize that some of the principles are generally applicable and not limited to wartime. Some might be quite familiar today. It is interesting to note that Goebbels' principles derive from Hitler's own ideas of propaganda.

1. Propagandists must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.
2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.
   1. It must issue all the propaganda directives.
   2. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.
   3. It must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences.
3. The Propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.
4. Propaganda must affect the enemy's policy and actions.
   1. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence.
   2. By openly disseminating propaganda whose contents or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions.
   3. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself.
   4. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity.
5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign.
6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting medium.
7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.
8. The purpose, content, and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose'; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.
9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.
10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.
11. Black rather than white propaganda must be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.
12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.
13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.
    1. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.
    2. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment.
    3. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness.
14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.
    1. They must evoke responses which the audience previously possesses.
    2. They must be capable of being easily learned.
    3. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations.
    4. They must be boomerang-proof.
15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.
16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.
    1. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat.
    2. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than that concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and cannot be reduced by people themselves.
17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.
    1. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated.
    2. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective.
18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.
19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.

These would be principles guiding the conduct of propaganda operations.

References

• Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda, Leonard W. Doob, Public Opinion Quarterly, Fall 1950 pp. 419-442
• Propagation and Persuasion; Jowett & O'Donnell

Online Resource ~  https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/Propaganda/goebbels.html

Branded as Sheeple by a Marxist Social Imagination?...

If you are like most sheeple people, then you live branded. You live for the brand/label. You wear it, you smell it, you run in it, you make love in it, you eat and drink it... its your god. Now if Marx was smart, he would have created a label, but in a sense he did - the Communist. He obviously had some idea what a brand as 'label' could do to change the way people live... the way they want to live as a label of: power, prestige, taste, extraordinary value, elusive exclusiveness, elitism, pacifism, warrior or solider, fisher, hunter, predator, master or slave. 

Max Weber was also a sociologist who observed society and sheeple. But Weber saw that meaning played the greater role when it comes to identity. He too had some idea of what a brand as 'label' could do and it was way more than just having money or wealth equality as a means to define you. 

Weber knew that people need and want meaning in their life... they need and want to believe in something greater than themselves. You see, people don't really want money. They want to be seen and heard as an individual and as a group. Every man and woman on the face of the earth wants that and the position and power that goes with belonging to a group and especially, the elites know that.

Weber was onto that truth and Marx too but Marx did not fully understand meaning that is an integral aspect of the social group! Weber saw that people act on, do things, based on what they believe, what something means to them. They like to spend time on developing who they are and are not. And, that has very little to do with money. But, money helps the cause ... even a good commie understands that. 

So, its not about having money as much as its about how you spend the time that the money allows. Again... its about how you spend your time with the money you have that allows you to define yourself (personalizing as in customizing) and that means something.

Brands enable people to belong and it doesn't matter if its a super expensive product or a cheap knock off: perfume, cologne, t-shirts, bumper stickers etc., make us feel like we are part of a group and better if they make us feel part of the elite group or at least part of their noble cause... whether its really objectionably noble or not doesn't matter.

Here is where it gets hilariously dangerous. You see, today people are being racially, politically, globally and socially branded by the power elites. 

Sure, people will say that's not true. They will argue that its all very real. Yeah, brands are real. Brands and their logos are absolutely real and some people might be willing to kill or die for them; for sure, they are willing to steal and if not steal... definitely copy them. 

Is cv one niner a brand? Its a brand you didn't want in the beginning but now you're gonna get it whether you like it or not because the branding committee... even if that 'committee' is nonexistent, people were branded by it. 

You think you haven't been branded??? Take a good look at your life and you will see just how branded you have become. Your identification is largely based on the group you belong to. You may have been born into it but you may also have been mass hypnotized into by clever marketers, politicians and even public education; including university.

Oh, how brands have been and are changing the world as we know it... just ask anyone in marketing; and, one thing stands true which is that some people will reap the benefits more than others. But, as long as you want to be branded as a Marxist, equality for all (empty of meaning) you will go along to get along with the communist branded life. And, you will like it even if you never had the choice to opt out.

 

*Advice, don't take the mark!

The SnowBall Effect in the Duped Social Imagination...

 

Was cv one niner just a really bad flu hyped up or even a super fake out in order to test the people of the world to see just how much they can be manipulated and or controlled by a man-made crown of thorns with a spike protein?

Maybe, it never was more than a ‘flu’ (Many people infected with the coronavirus do NOT feel sick or have only MILD symptoms: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and diseases/coronavirus/coronavirus-disease-2019-vs-the-flu), or a fluke flu as in novel and so it seemed like a useful (not too serious) weapon to build a worldwide controlled political system and market…

If we look at it as a marketing tool it certainly had a snowball effect, desired or not, it worked. It worked so well that even Big Pharma was amazed at what it could do.

So, if that were true, then why the vax? To ensure control forever… booster after booster. After all, a hyped-up flu should not loose its momentum and dissipate! So, with a vax Big Pharma is reaping it for all its worth.

But, didn’t people really get sick and didn't some die? Sure, but that is not new news. People die every day from one thing or another and they die from complications of bad flu viruses; especially, if they don't take care of their health or they have a weakened immune system or have other serious illness that is ongoing.

FYI, there are fatalities every year from the ‘flu’ and that was true before this ‘flu’. Statistically, deaths from this ‘flu’ have been holding steady at 2% worldwide and that’s an incredibly low percentage given the total susceptible population. So, its no joke. But, its no population extinction level v either.

There are too many strange coincidences, loop holes and truths that counter and support the agenda at hand and yet not enough data and evidence for those at the top to declare and execute a totalitarian war on those being attacked by this circulating crown.  

So, the snowball effect rolls on. The charade 'deception' kept going… the idea now is not to let the snowball slow down. After all, the elites and their so-called experts would stand to lose a lot of money and face in the game.

But what if it was actually a bio-weapon that our so-called experts were able to contain knowing its genetic makeup?  And, who let this weapon out? Well, maybe it was a targeted assault by some disgruntled eastern European or Asian boss; but what does it really matter now since so many (elites) have benefited and continue to do so?

Let’s return to the notion that this was a pretty bad flu virus and it snowballed. As it rolled along everyone at the top made out so what’s the big deal, right? People should and are asking... How could that be true in a country of decent people, how could that have happened in health conscious countries? 

Well, the world we live in is a world of deception and innocent people can be duped into thinking that what they are actually experiencing is either worse than it is or not. Its how the ball rolls that counts... especially, in terms of who gains favor from its rollout.

We could wonder if capitalist countries were targeted given the climate for socialism. After all, third world countries don’t seem to have had a big problem with the v. And, its interesting how developed countries got carried away so quickly. But then, we are pretty gullible whenever someone points to 'science' as the truth teller. 

They yell... "doesn’t the science tell us it was more than a really bad flu and that its hard for the experts to say where it came from and why?" Folks, scientists, experts and  politicians are just people. And, their 'science' is not above any of them.

I recently read a blog by an enlightened young man named ~Ayodeji Awosika. Here is a summation of what he had to say about how people can be so easily duped. 

    Did you know that there are ten lies that society loves to tell us? One of them is that things are going to get better and another one is that science is God. Did you know that most of the science used to back policy decisions or simply to control the narrative isn’t real science? It’s scientism, the appearance of science. Real science can and should be dissected, refuted, and questioned to death before it is accepted.

    Science doesn’t tell you what to do. This idea that science has an opinion on what you should do, isn’t science at all. It’s up to us to make those decisions. Man uses man-made tools/equipment and man-made methods to try to figure out what life is all about and man calls that science. But, hey… its what we got to work with, right? If it works, its only because a group of so and so man-made experts agree and they agree because it means power and position for them.

    That’s why, every time I see someone on social media sharing an article that says “A study shows…” I want to gag. This isn’t to say you should reject all studies; but there’s this idea that if you don’t work for or stand with an organization that has an acronym, you don’t get to have an opinion.

    Have you ever encountered someone who tries to cavalierly throw the word science at you, without explaining the underlying science, to bully you into agreeing with them? If yes, then you’re not talking to a smart person. Sadly, science has often been turned into a propaganda tool to push certain narratives.

    Narratives… at this point, if you don’t understand that the mainstream media is fake, I’m not sure how else it can be properly explained. Again, it’s not about erroneous reporting of facts. It’s about lies and spin on some truths, i.e. the flu kills over 60k every year. Now, exaggerate that and you come up with pandemic.

    There’s just no incentive for the people at the top to be honest with you. Doesn’t that seem obvious? Hopefully, people are finally starting to wake up as trust in institutions is reaching an all-time low.

    Still, far too many people take what they’re being told at face value for no reason other than the fact it comes from an ‘authority’. This is due to authority bias — the tendency to simply believe someone because they have power.

    No mandate can save lives and no policy can create purpose and meaning in your life. Nobody can hand you your freedom and flexibility. In fact, your reliance on others creates an inverse correlation to freedom.

    All the lies from society coalesce into this huge lie that you don’t know how to manage your own life. The powers that be try very hard every day to convince you to outsource all of your thinking, agency, and responsibility to them.

 

 

*Online Source ~ http://ayotheauthor.com/10-lies-society-loves-tell-us/

 

~ Afterward... Can millions and maybe billions of people be duped?  Sure, all people can  fall for a big lie and the bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe it. People everywhere are after all... human.