Classical Conditioning - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

One of the earliest literary references to classical conditioning can be found in the comic novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759) by Laurence Sterne. The narrator Tristram Shandy explains how his mother was conditioned by his father's habit of winding up a clock before having sex with his wife:

My father was, I believe, one of the most regular men in every thing he did e had made it a rule for many years of his life,—on the first Sunday-night of every month throughout the whole year,—as certain as ever the Sunday-night came,—to wind up a large house-clock, which we had standing on the back-stairs head, with his own hands:—And being somewhere between fifty and sixty years of age at the time I have been speaking of,—he had likewise gradually brought some other little family concernments to the same period, in order, as he would often say to my uncle Toby, to get them all out of the way at one time, and be no more plagued and pestered with them the rest of the month. rom an unhappy association of ideas, which have no connection in nature, it so fell out at length, that my poor mother could never hear the said clock wound up,—but the thoughts of some other things unavoidably popped into her head—& vice versa:—Which strange combination of ideas, the sagacious Locke, who certainly understood the nature of these things better than most men, affirms to have produced more wry actions than all other sources of prejudice whatsoever.

In the 1932 novel Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley, conditioning plays a key role in the maintenance of social peace, especially in maintaining the caste system upon which society is based. Children are conditioned, both in their sleep and in their daily activities, to be happy in their Government-assigned social role as Alphas, Betas, etc, as well as in adopting other "socially acceptable" types of behaviour, including consuming manufactured goods and transport, practicing free sex, etc. For example, early on in the book, the Director of the Central London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre shows his young visitors how a group of toddlers of the Delta caste is conditioned to avoid books and flowers, by using shrill noises to terrorise them and applying "mild electric shocks". Also, in a later explanation by Resident World Controller of Western Europe Mustapha Mond of how their society really works, he explains how early conditioning is an essential part of how social harmony among the different castes is maintained. Lower-caste members like Epsilons are as happy as upper-caste Alpha-Pluses, in large part due to their conditioning.

Another example is in the dystopian novel, A Clockwork Orange in which the novel's anti-hero and protagonist, Alex, is undergoes a procedure called the Ludovico technique, where he is fed a solution to cause severe nausea and then forced to watch violent acts. This renders him unable to perform any violent acts without inducing similar nausea. Unintentionally, he also forms an aversion to classical music.

In the science-fiction book Ender's Shadow, "Pavlovian mental bans" are also used to prevent crime. In the book, a controversial scientist, Anton, is kept from researching genetic experimentation by associating his work with anxiety. A device is then surgically placed in his head that would increase detected anxiety, sending him into a panic attack. The result is that Anton must remain good humored at all times, can only speak of his work through self-deceptive metaphors, and even after his Pavlovian mental ban is lifted can no longer study science.

The metal band Rorschach have a song titled "Pavlov's dogs" (the title being an obvious reference to Ivan Pavlov's experiment) whose lyrics also treat about classical conditioning.

Another example is from the TV series The Office. In the episode Phyllis' Wedding Jim conditions Dwight to want a breath mint whenever there is a computer chime.