Are You a Victim of Classical Conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov described Classical Conditioning in about the year 1900. What he found was that by linking one thing to another he could make the subject respond to the second thing the way the would respond to the first. (ok that was a bit confusing but here's an example)

Ivan Pavlov was actually studying digestion in dogs when he discovered Classical Conditioning. His experiment was to present the dog with meat powder and study the amount of salivation. Naturally, when the dog saw Pavlov's assistant getting food the dog would salivate. What Pavlov realized though was that the dog soon began salivating before he was presented the food. He would salivate to the sound of the device used to open the meat powder.
The dog linked the meat powder with the sound, and the sound then led to the same response the meat powder would make. This is used by the media all the time in today's world.

Classical Conditioning in Advertisement
Advertisers love manipulating people's emotions. Most of the time they are trying to get you to feel comfortable with their product. Commercials especially are stacked with stimuli to call forth positive emotions. Usually advertisements show warm, loving families, cute and cuddly pets, nice pleasant music, riches and wealth, and (their favorite) extremely attractive models. Haven't you ever seen any of those dumb Payte Manning "buy this deodorant" commercials? The companies want you to connect the two, and when you see that deodorant think of positive things much like the emotions of awe and admiration of Manning (although I'd pick Brady any day). These are also usually more specific to an audience, and it is really basic ideas of marketing. Beer commercials feature big masculine men, products marketed to women show femininity and beauty, and jeans for teens are in a hip, urban scene.

Classical Conditioning in Business Negotiations
There are two main strategies to give customers those pleasant feelings.

1. Taking customers out to dinner at a fine, luxurious restaurant. This attempts to connect all these good feelings with the host.

2. Taking customers to major events. Most arenas and concerts have built the "luxury boxes" sitting high up on top. These seats during the Super Bowl usually go to the Fortune 500 corporations. This pairs the host with pleasant feelings and excitement of the big event.

It is good to know however, that these strategies also include the reciprocity norm, or a social rule that one should pay back what one receives from others. This "trick" is how many companies do business.

Classical Conditioning in Politics
Like advertisers, politicians are always trying to influence the attitudes of people. One way they do this is by showing up at big events that really don't have anything to do with them or their campaign. Example? Well, a few months ago I saw a man running for senator at the opening of a new mall. I thought to myself, "Why is he campaigning at a mall? Is he planning to pass some bill that creates tons more mall?" I then realized that he was using classical conditioning and wanted the people to associate them with these positive, pleasant events. Many political campaigning use the same techniques as advertising.

Become Aware of Classical Conditioning
It's hard to say how effective classical conditioning is and how much it can really manipulate a person's emotions. Everyone is different and so what will work on you might not work so well on your friend. Also, many advertisements and politicians use multiple techniques at once which makes it very difficult to study only classical conditioning. The best defense against this is to be aware that people are trying to use classical conditioning on you and try to be aware of when it is being used. Research has suggested that if you know a company is trying to manipulate you then you will be more resistant to it.