Debra’s article this month, “Mohini,” provides an example of learned behavior. Having learned how much space she was allowed, Mohini remained within her learned limits, even when more space was available to her. Behavior is often developed—shaped—by environment. Humans demonstrate this every bit as much as tigers and other animals. B. F. Skinner was a behavioral psychologist best known for creating the Skinner Box, designed for shaping behavior through Operant Conditioning.
Those of us who have owned dogs have doubtless used operant conditioning, both rewards and punishments, to shape the behavior of our dogs. If we’re consistent in providing rewards (punishments are not required), we can teach them to come, sit, stand, stay, and a variety of other things by rewarding some behaviors and not others. This works especially for dogs because they are pack animals and tend to do what the pack leader desires. Cats are not pack animals, so they can’t be easily trained with praise. The will, however, respond to operant conditioning as long as they are rewarded with something they really like. While dogs pay attention to “negative reinforcement” (punishment) because pack leaders will punish behavior they don’t like, cats can’t readily be trained with punishment. They have a “get even” mentality, and peeing on your favorite furniture is one of the ways they enjoy getting even….
When it comes to learning, humans have a huge advantage over other animals. Adult animals teach their offspring of course. Young ones typically stay with mom until they are old enough to survive on their own. Mom shows them what’s safe and what isn’t, where and how to find food, and how to navigate their territory. In primitive times, humans did essentially the same. We generally lived in groups for reasons of safety and efficiency. Parents and other elders passed accumulated knowledge on to children. We still do basically the same thing, but we have become more efficient at it because we have learned to disseminate information in a wide variety of ways. In primitive times, children could learn only what the tribe knew. We now have all sorts of printed information available, TV, movies, and computer-based information exchange. Communication gives us a major advantage not available to Mohini: We can learn from other individuals and other cultures. Mohini didn’t have another tiger available to say, “Hey, Mohini, this whole area is yours to explore now.”
The increased ability to exchange information also has a downside. What do we do about those who are different from us? Throughout history, the answer as typically been war: tribal warfare, racial warfare, territorial warfare, cultural warfare, and religious warfare. I suspect other kinds of warfare as well. In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare says that Fortinbras is willing to go to war over “an eggshell.” It isn’t always easy, of course, to know what makes something valuable to another. Shakespeare doesn’t tell us the Norwegian’s motivation for going to war against Poland, but we do know what Medieval warfare was like. Here in the States we have just had the most contentious election in a long time. Democrats and Republicans have been at each other’s throats, not only with a war of words, but also with some physical violence. The irony is that most of those on both sides want the same things for themselves and their families. But pack animals, and humans are essential pack animals, tend to do what the pack leader dictates.
Humans have been conditioned to follow one pack leader or another, so we are a lot like Mohini. We are free to choose alternatives, but “what we know is what we know,” and it is difficult to choose an unknown. You may have seen recent news stories indicating that the George Orwell’s “1984” are up. My sense is that increasing numbers of people are aware that something out of the ordinary is going on, even if they aren’t quite sure what, and even if they don’t yet know what to do about it. We may indeed be in the Skinner Box of life, but once we have figured that out, we will have a better idea of how we might avoid letting old conditioning control our behavior.