Conditioning!

When you see a person, whether he or she you have a tendency to label with in a certain category. In your heart, you will feel, as she is very humble, she agrees with every one, she is polite, so on and so forth. As a person grows, he or she develops a certain kind of personality. That personality depends upon the group she belongs to; the society she belongs to and the kind of influence majority of people are having in her developing process.

Human beings are social animals. Every individual wants to live in a certain group or more than one group that matches his personality. The individual will either change herself or change the group member’s personality. That depends upon how influential the person is .When a girl from Delhi comes and joins a school in a village ,she will be so influential that every one in her group will act according to her .Because the members realize that she is smarter then every one ,more knowledgeable and more advanced.

However, this is not always then case. Most of the time the opposite happens. An individual does not want to be ostracized because of the difference of opinion of his/her group. At that time, the individual will act according to the other group member completely ignoring its real nature. That is what every member is doing.

Just to be in a certain group we have to change our selves. Studies have already been done on this behavioral pattern of human beings in Psychology .The concept is explained as “Conditioning”. Conditioning is the ways in which events, stimuli, and behavior become associated with one another. This made all the sense to me when a psychology book explained with an appropriate example. While pondering on that concept I recalled an example, I had a discussion with my friend on the topic of Indian music. I said that, I like “Lata Mangeskar” but I do not like “Asha Bhosle”. I categorized these singers based on my subconscious opinion .later I realized that my like or dislike is actually not my own opinion but it is based on my group’s opinion in which I grew up .Look how beautifully conditioning works here. In our culture, we have a mental frame that if a woman is not beautiful she is supposed to be humble, cover her body and has no right to be glamorous. Since lata Mangeskar is the perfect picture of that model, my group (my mother,Aunts,and all ladies)approved of her. Where as Asha Bhosle revolted that picture prefect image and became a glamorous singer ignoring her bad looks. As a result, she is disliked in my group. I being 6 years old in front of those 30-40 years old members cannot have my own opinion and started to believe that I also do not like Asha Bhosle.My dislike was not based on a genuine reason.

Another example is we all Indians hate Pakistani. Nevertheless, if we go to Pakistan I am sure we will change our opinion for them. Either because of the peer pressure (Pakistani group in which you belong there) or because of the sudden realization of the fact, that Pakistani people are actually are not bad as we have been thinking all this time.

This was just another example. There are many more opinions, which we do not know or never realized .Some of the thoughts we do not even know that we have. Some behavior change (walking, talking, and adult sexual behavior) requires biological development as well as experience. These will definitely change as we grow older However, there are many which will never change due to our subconscious mental image.

Perhaps many of you have several opinions like these, which are based on your group. Try to think about them some time