Conditioning

“Skinner Box”

Reward/Punishment. Incentive/Disincentive.
Positive/Negative reinforcement.

These are the tools used to influence our behaviors and predictably govern our actions.

I worked at a state prison for a time, inside the courtyard, surrounded by inmates. Every time sirens would go off, the prisoners would lay on the ground.

Now I’m working at elementary schools, in both rich and poor neighborhoods. At all of them, at the end of recess, the TA’S blow sirens and all the kids freeze and kneel on the ground.

We all of us live in our own custom Skinner box and we don’t realize it. Influenced by societal and personal systems of reward and punishment. How many of us deny our true selves in order to placate into reward structures geared to perpetuate itself, rather then be discontinued by the user.

Disclaimer: I don’t mean for this to come across sounding “Kaczynskien.” But I am fascinated by human psychology and how effective simple tactics can be on the human psyche. It makes me wonder what other complex yet subtle tactics are being used against us without our knowledge.