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Psychology of Communication: learning
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Psychology of Communication: learning
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Pavlov's experiments with conditioned reflexes were developed further by him. He trained a dog to salivate when shown a circle and not to salivate when shown an ellipse. Gradually, the shape of the ellipse was developed so that it became increasingly circular. When, finally, the difference between the circle and the ellipse was only very slight, the dog became very agitated. Moreover, it no longer displayed the conditioned reflex it had acquired. Pavlov described this effect as experimentally induced neurosis.
These principles were extended to human beings by the American psychologist Watson, who conditioned an infant to be afraid of a rat it had previously happily played with by associating a loud noise with the rat. Other psychologists developed this process of pairing in more positive directions by, for example associating a feared object with something responded to positively, thereby decreasing the fear. This process was supported by placing the child who feared the object together with other children who did not.
Eventually, behaviour modification became established as a standard therapy (it is also known as behaviour therapy) for the treatment of bed-wetting, alcoholism, drug addiction and a variety of disturbed behaviour patterns.
Common techniques of behaviour modification are:
From our point of view as Communication students, behaviour modification techniques are of interest because of the extent to which they may be used in advertising and propaganda, a suspicion perhaps aroused because advertising agencies certainly do use the services of psychologists (Watson himself worked in advertising). In The Hidden Persuaders Vance Packard (Packard 1957) claims to have unearthed evidence of many different varieties of behaviour modification techniques being used.
There is a theory that the constant exposure to violence in the media desensitises readers to real suffering in the real world. There is little evidence to support the contention. However, the notion is based on the technique of systematic desensitisation, which may seem to lend support to the theory of desensitisation through the media. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that the therapeutic use of the technique is indeed systematic, which is not the case with media output.
For practical work, behaviour modification is certainly worth paying some attention to. It's worth particularly looking at the notion of pairing. In effect, if you produce your media artefact about a subject your readers may tend to find boring or frightening, but produce it in a style which your research suggests is attractive to them (for example, the style of their favourite magazine), then you are using the principle of pairing.
Behaviourism
Berlo on learning
Conditioned reflex
Schramm's Fraction of Selection
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