what is social conditiong and?

Question

i started reading Brave New World and i cant get anything on it...i need 2 kno what social condtioning is and what Behaviorism is...thx

Answer 1

Brave New World, published in 1932, was first intended as a dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley. Set in London in the 26th century, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, biological engineering, and hypnopædia that combine to change society. The world it describes could also be a utopia, albeit an ironic one: Humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things people currently derive happiness from — family, cultural diversity, art, literature, science, religion and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use.

Brave New World is Huxley's most famous novel. The title comes from Miranda's speech in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act V, Scene I:

"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!" -- Wikipedia

In other words, people are happy but their happiness costs them their perspective and their objectivity. Their vision is kept permanently small, limited and narrow. If they were to wake up and see the larger world, then they wouldn't be personally happy anymore, because they'd see all the suffering. People don't suffer materially; they suffer intellectually and emotionally from deprivation and lack of challenge.

From a blog, but one of the most lucid, articulate explanations I've seen:

"Social conditioning also teaches us to keep our perspective small in time and space. When do TV characters ever take on a cosmic perspective? Most don’t broaden their perspective beyond themselves and their families. At best they assume the perspective of their community, their religion, or their country. These characters condition you to do the same, and you probably don’t even realize that there’s an alternative. If the media can control your perspective and keep it small and tight, then it can more easily influence you to do what it wants, such as “keep watching” and “buy stuff.” A person with a limited perspective will more easily become a media addict and will buy things to feel secure. Materialism helps maintain the illusion of that limited perspective. A person with a cosmic consciousness doesn’t need much stuff because s/he will perceive it as trivial or unimportant, which indeed most of it is. Hence, the media doesn’t encourage us to broaden our perspective beyond a certain point (usually no further than one’s own nation or religion).

The most common way to shrink someone’s perspective is to put them into a state of fear. Make them feel their survival is threatened. Fear shrinks perspective. Fearlessness expands it. Fearlessness can take the form of unconditional love, service, transcendence, or even just curiosity. Does traditional media usually leave you feeling more fearful or more fearless? Of course it’s the former, but the fear is sold to you like a comfortable old shirt. You become so accustomed to it that you forget you’re wearing it. You just conform to social norms and assume that it’s the most intelligent way to live." -- stevepavlina.com

And now for behaviorism:

"Behaviorism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behaviour can be studied and explained scientifically without recourse to internal mental states. A similar approach to political science may be found in Behavioralism.

The behaviorist school of thought ran concurrent with the psychoanalysis movement in psychology in the 20th century. Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning, John B. Watson who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B.F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning."

"There is no classification generally agreed upon, and some would add to or modify this list.

* Classical: The behaviorism of Skinner; the objective study of behavior; no mental life, no internal states; thought is covert speech.
* Methodological: The objective study of third-person behavior; the data of psychology must be inter-subjectively verifiable; no theoretical prescriptions. It has been absorbed into general experimental and cognitive psychology.
* Radical: Skinnerian behaviorism; is considered radical since it expands behavioral principles to processes within the organism; in contrast to methodological behaviorism; not mechanistic or reductionist; hypothetical (mentalistic) internal states are not considered causes of behavior, phenomena must be observable at least to the individual experiencing them.
* Logical: Established by Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle in his book The Concept of Mind (1949).
* Teleological: Post-Skinnerian, purposive, close to microeconomics.
* Theoretical: Post-Skinnerian, accepts observable internal states ("within the skin" once meant "unobservable", but with modern technology we are not so constrained); dynamic, but eclectic in choice of theoretical structures, emphasizes parsimony.
* Biological: Post-Skinnerian, centered on perceptual and motor modules of behavior, theory of behavior systems.
* Interbehaviorism: Founded by J. R. Kantor before Skinner's writings and currently worked by L. Hayes; E, Ribes; and S. Bijou. Centered in the interbehavior of organisms, field theory of behavior; emphasis on human behavior.

Two popular subtypes are Neo-: Hullian and post-Hullian, theoretical, group data, not dynamic, physiological, and Purposive: Tolman’s behavioristic anticipation of cognitive psychology." -- Wikipedia

Answer 2

Behaviorism is a system of reinforcement. When a person performs a desired behavior, they are given a reward like a cookie. This is called positive reinforcement. Hence, they perform that behavior again. When a person does not perform the desired behavior, the reward is withheld. This is called negative reinforcement and the undesired behavior gradually ceases.