Conditioning 🍪

LIFE ON URTH - Episode 081

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is a central concept in behavioral psychology, shaped by T. S. Skinner (1904–1990). According to this model, the probability of a behavior is influenced by its consequences: reinforcement increases the behavior, punishment decreases it. A distinction is made between positive and negative reinforcement, as well as between two types of punishment.

Positive reinforcement means that a pleasant stimulus (e.g., a cookie or a compliment) follows a behavior (e.g., building a nice sandcastle). The two become associated, and the likelihood of the behavior increases—because we like cookies and compliments. In this way, pigeons (usually with cookies rather than compliments) can even be trained to groom their feathers or spin in circles in order to receive a reward.

Negative reinforcement also makes a behavior more likely by reducing an unpleasant stimulus. When we avoid anxiety-provoking situations and our anxiety decreases as a result, avoidance is reinforced as a strategy. Reducing avoidance behavior is therefore one of the central goals of behavioral therapy. For this reason, I find it particularly important to foster curiosity even toward challenging situations.

Punishment is divided into two types:

Type 1 is the opposite of positive reinforcement and adds an unpleasant stimulus—the behavior decreases.
Type 2 is the opposite of negative reinforcement and removes a pleasant stimulus—the behavior also decreases.

There are often overlaps, for example: I carelessly place my full cup at the edge of the table; shortly afterward, it tips over, and the contents spill onto the floor. I have to clean up (Type 1 punishment), and I have lost my tasty drink (Type 2 punishment). At least for the next few days, I will pay more attention to placing my cup more securely.

Conditioning Strikes Back

What our system has learned through conditioning is expressed in our automatic evaluations, feelings, fantasies, and impulses. This also highlights the functionality of our patterns, which—much like in an evolutionary process—have been selected over the course of our lives through reinforcement or punishment. Even patterns that seem useless or even harmful in adult life must therefore have served a “purpose” at some point in terms of reinforcement or punishment.

But conditioning never stops, and we can use that. Through new data and corrective experiences, even deeply entrenched beliefs of our system can change. No matter how strong the alarm is: if we experience often enough and with sufficient intensity that it is a false alarm, we will become less alarmed—conditioning.

This is exactly how exposure therapy works. Instead of avoidance (and the negative reinforcement through a rapid drop in anxiety), a new attitude toward unpleasant feelings and thoughts is adopted: curiosity.

This does not make them more pleasant, at least not at first, but the alarm system is weakened in the long term. When anxiety then subsides, it is no longer avoidance but the new, courageous approach of exposition that is reinforced. Some patients even develop a strong appetite for expositions over time.

Imagination and Dragons

Cognitive knowledge alone is usually not enough to dissolve deeply rooted beliefs. Someone with a severe fear of flying will not be convinced to board a plane by statistics on crash rates.

For a corrective experience, however, the situation does not necessarily have to be real—it only has to feel real. This is shown by the effectiveness of expositions in virtual reality (e.g., giving a presentation with social phobia).

Likewise, the imagination of distressing memories in trauma-focused exposition therapy carries no “real” danger. Participating patients can certainly report, however, that it can feel very real—and about the freedoms gained when avoidance behavior has been successfully reduced through exposure.

What matters is convincing the system of the reality of the situation and thereby deliberately triggering the alarm. This is unintuitive and, in a way, mean, because exposition becomes truly effective only when it is sufficiently uncomfortable. To claim the treasure, one must face the emotional dragon.

The Hero’s Journey

Jordan B. Peterson’s model in Maps of Meaning connects modern psychological views with mythology. Behind it lies the assumption that ancient stories also served as a form of behavioral guidance. Especially cross-cultural narrative structures may contain deep and still relevant wisdom.

And the stories of the world agree on one thing: the hero’s task is the voluntary journey into the unknown and the return with the treasure. Or, in short: curiosity.

The entire system must undergo a corrective experience in order to change deep beliefs. The prefrontal cortex alone—representative of cognitive information (e.g., statistics about plane crashes)—is not sufficient, because the true unknown begins beyond the horizon of our language and symbols.

Intense contact with the endless complexity of the unknown is exhausting. That is why we protect ourselves in everyday life with self-built backdrops. Repeatedly breaking through them with genuine curiosity requires courage—but it also reliably fills the world with life and color.

✒️ Quote of the Week: “Letting go of our images of who we are is a way of letting go of the known, which is our prison.” -Pema Chödrön

🎧 Song of the Week: Asura - Altered State

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Adrian / Urth

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