Subliminal and Instrumental Conditioning

Subliminal and Operant Conditioning

 Richard H. von Gremmler

  

    Subliminal (Classical) and operant conditioning were initially introduced  …    

   Pavlov discovered by using dogs as experimental subjects, he would demonstrate that living creatures could become emotionally responsive to external stimuli, without conscious awareness, and without the capability of restricting the respective stimuli.  His other research focused on objective behavior, which he referred to as operant conditioning.

   Since classical conditioning is an unpredictable and consciously unobservable phenomenon, which involves our mysterious and unidentified internal emotional world (unconscious inner-Self), I will refer to this process as subliminal conditioning.  (Refer to my blog on Consciousness/Subconscious/Unconscious inner-Self)

   The only affiliation linking these two conditioning processes is that; subliminal conditioning will always be responsible for the driving-forces of the underlying impetus.  Consequently, this phenomenon will be accountable for all emotional inspirations; including operant conditioning endeavors.

   The significant disparity between these two conditioning processes is that, with subliminal conditioning, the process is involuntary, whereas, with operant conditioning, the process is voluntary, even though influenced by subliminal involuntary dynamics.

   With operant conditioning, the objective is to achieve goals through deliberate and repetitive behavior.  This encompasses mastering a specific activity such as a sport or an occupational skill, while making adjustments and refinements by which to attain the most favorable results.  Essentially, operant conditioning requires the application with learning physical and objective behavior by which to fulfill emotionally driven aspirations and expectations.

   With subliminal conditioning, this process is associated with our emotions, with the conditioning process neither consciously detectable nor predictable.  And as the term implies, the dynamics of the conditioning consist of subliminal emotionally subjective forces, which are responsible for the disposition of our personalities (identities).

   And as a result of subliminal conditioning, which is responsible for, and directly affecting our emotional behavior, which includes both, emotional thought processes and overt activity; this will engender uncertainty and confusion within our conscious environment. 

   This transpires because of the questionable preferences of variable emotional stimuli entering into consciousness; which will be totally dependent on, and also directly affecting, our emotional needs and emotional stability.  (Refer to my blog on Emotional Needs)

   The acceptability of incoming confrontational related emotional factors (stressors) will always be evaluated by our ego-defense mechanisms, whereby, if not consciously encouraging, the genuine clarification of the criteria will either be suppressed into our subconscious, or repressed into our unconscious inner-Self.  (Refer to my blog on Ego-Defense Mechanisms)

   And this is one of the main reasons how emotional needs are established.  Should we deny or fail to identify (Self-awareness) and accept incoming emotional data for the authenticity of the respective stimuli, which is dependent on severity and also our emotional stability threshold, the actuality of the criteria may become obscure, with the clarification of the scenario completely inaccessible from consciousness.

    And as a consequence of necessitating a normal and healthy moderation within our internal emotional environment, should we fail maintaining this equilibrium, this will create an emotional void within our unconscious inner-Self.  And as a result of this emptiness, we will resort to becoming dependent (needy) on almost any external resource by which to satisfy this emotional void.  This will impede our independency stability, consequently establishing dependencies (needs) from other resources to fulfill these emotional needs (void), rather than becoming self-sufficient on our own.

   As a result of this obscure dilemma, emotional needs may eventually become the principal determinacy for the motivation and orchestration of all future pursuits and behavior, both subjectively  (emotionally) and objectively (logically). 

   I consider subliminal conditioning to be one of the most vital and fascinating emotional forces requiring introspection: the clarification of the conditioning processes transpiring within our underlying and mystifying emotional domain, the unconscious inner-Self.

   My premise is that subliminal conditioning is the second most significant component directly responsible for our emotional evolution.  The primary manipulator(s) accountable for this identity maturation, commonly referred to as personality; are our mentors, i.e. parents, guardians, educators, peers, etc.; and basically anyone influential over our emotional development.  

    Subliminal conditioning is initially established while in the mother’s womb, with a myriad of emotional dynamics evolving; and from this time on, these emotional phenomena begin molding an individual’s identity (personality).  And it is my opinion, beginning with this point and time in life, from inception until approximately five years of age, this transition period is the most critical phase of an individual’s emotional indoctrination: receiving either positive, or negative, subliminal conditioning and reinforcement.  And when referring to positive and negative behavior and reinforcement, I’m implying both overt implications and subliminal feelings.  

   My experiences with negative conditioning have been, that, the greater the diversity and conflicting the unfavorable influences, the more instilled and detrimental the conditioning. 

   Essentially, negative conditioning consists of contributing to and reinforcing an individual’s emotional self-destruction.  And the quandary presented: even though the conditioning and reinforcement appearing overtly favorable on the consciousness level, there is always the prospect of subliminal negative influences.  And this is one of the more important factors why we experience neurosis and depression.

   When experiencing both overt negative expressions and subliminal feelings from others, the intent would be direct and uncomplicated, even though still suppressive.  But there wouldn’t be any confusion as to the negative intentions, whereby allowing us the freedom to either challenge the negativism, or by totally withdrawing from the situation.  And should we remain within this negative environment, and without any positive resolution, we could possibly eventually become masochists!

   Strangely, this scenario is less detrimental than experiencing unpredictable and a myriad of mixed messages.  As with one behavior appearing positive and another openly negative, or vacillating, or inhibited, these will be conflicting, whereby, creating complex implications.  With this form of communication, it’s incredibly difficult comprehending the genuine intentions.  This to me is one of the main reasons why children experience so many difficulties when attempting to communicate with their parents; because of the conflicting overt behavior and the subliminal emotional feelings.

   When referring to emotional inhibitions, these are barriers, created by ego-defense mechanisms, which will be reflected as negative and suppressive, since the respective party’s feelings will be interpreted as expressionless and insensitive.  Inhibitions will always restrict genuine emotional disclosure.  And since inhibitions will preclude the display of genuine emotional feelings, this represents a form of rejection to the recipient.

   What’s interesting about this phenomenon is; inhibitions transpire as a result of ego-defense mechanisms, which create barriers, thus creating inhibitions.  And even though ego-defense mechanisms are designed to protect us from emotional conflict, they actually create even greater emotional stress if not understood and managed.

   Thus, whenever we are exposed to stimuli that create stress beyond our emotional tolerance threshold (security level), our ego-defense mechanisms will create barriers, which will activate, whereby preventing conscious observation of the respective stress stimuli (stressors).  (Refer to my blog on Stress/Anger Conflicts)

   The important thing to comprehend is that, the genuineness of subliminal feelings will always supersede intentions of overt behavior, since consciousness will only be able to experience what the conscious mind is capable of accepting (ego-defense mechanisms).  In some instances we may visualize experiences, as we may need to believe as reality.  This occurs the majority of the time, since it’s extremely difficult to accept the truth (reality) when we’re actually the one’s responsible for unfortunate consequences.

   Now for the fun part, whether the stimuli are positive or negative, if the genuine reality of the actuality is denied from consciousness, and not as we have a need to perceive as reality, this process will not be consciously evident when repressed into an individual’s unconscious inner-Self. 

   Ego-defense mechanisms are only effective with preventing threatening stimuli affecting an individual’s conscious emotions, both from within (internally) and externally; but can never prevent the reception of emotional feelings from entering into our unconscious inner-Self. 

   When referring to internal and external stimuli, with ego-defense mechanisms, the reality of specific stress situations will be denied from consciousness (barriers), with the genuineness of the identification of the circumstances suppressed into the subconscious, or repressed into the unconscious inner-Self, depending on the respective severity.

    It’s similar to a one-way mirror; where ego-defense mechanisms will prevent (inhibit) the disclosure of the feelings from within an individual’s emotions.  But it is impossible to prevent or block out incoming emotional feelings, either positive or negative, from entering into the unconscious inner-Self; and cannot prevent consciousness misinterpretation.

   And as a result of inhibitions, all future interaction will be on a noncommittal and emotionally restrictive level, whereby promoting even greater inhibitions and barriers.  This failure of assertion and genuineness will then engender additional rejection, and because rejection being negative, everyone exposed within this environment will then experience guilt.  And unfortunately, rejection always begets rejection.  (Refer to my blog on Guilt)

   Barriers result because of ego-defense mechanisms, which, as related, then create another phenomenon; whereby, all participants involved will also unknowingly inhibit their emotions; thus restricting their genuine feelings from one another, whereas resulting in reciprocal behavior.  This is one of the main reasons why some individuals may refrain from deep emotional interaction with others, whereby just existing in life by becoming dependent on non-threatening trivia!

   It’s extremely difficult expressing warmth when being rejected.  The interesting thing here is; when not rejecting negativism or rejection from others, this will actually trigger greater frustration from them.  This occurs because of their guilt, and also by our not retaliating.  And especially, since they will suffer alone, and believe me, misery loves company!

   Whenever inhibitions are integrated with overt interactions, the genuine interpretations will always go askew, with the genuine actuality suppressed into the subconscious or repressed into the unconscious inner-Self.  There are no circumstances where overt expressions could reveal genuineness, unless if in concert with our subliminal feelings.  And again, regardless of overt behavior, whether verbal, physical, etc., subliminal feelings will always supersede and dictate our true and genuine rationale.

   Thus, whenever subliminal feelings are being expressed and/or subjected to, if the messages are emotionally obstructed, the interaction is suppressive and negative (rejection).

   Again, if overt behavior and covert feelings are ever out of sync, the disclosure will always imply negativism.  And it’s impossible to express overt negativism while subliminal feelings are positive, as expressed, subliminal feelings will always supersede overt behavior.  Only when overt expressions and subliminal feelings coincide, could the implications ever be accurately defined.     

   To briefly reiterate about ego-defense mechanisms, these are inherent safeguards, which are designed to prevent emotional conflict, whereby, restricting the conscious mind from experiencing specific stress situations (stressors) that exceed an individual’s emotional threshold.  And these ego-defense mechanisms are the primary reason why so many in today’s society are oblivious if, when, and why they are even experiencing emotional trepidation.

   Also of interest, which occurs within some family interactions, is when habitually conditioned individuals are exposed within a pre-established negative environment, which include the mentors responsible for the previous negative indoctrination, there will always be the routine subliminal negative influences reinforcing the previous conditioning and reinforcement. 

   Negative personalities will always thrive on feeding off the misery of others, because of their own dismal world.  Since some individuals may feel obligated (subliminally conditioned) to partake in this abnormal diatribe, the negatively exploited victim(s) may become sufficiently conditioned so as to create a self-dependency on the continuance of associating with the person(s) responsible for the abusive conditioning!  And this particular conditioning process can eventually become self-perpetuating, while without conscious awareness by any of the participants. 

   These emotionally disturbed individual’s who control and manipulate others for personal satisfaction will suppress and continue to afflict the conditioned (condemned) victim(s) to play this abusive role.  These individuals will normally use pity or guilt as a means by which to emotionally constrain the recipient(s) to be at their disposal; and especially since misery loves company!

   So regardless of where the abused victim(s) might be situated geographically, the consequences from the conditioning will continue to persist.  And this disruptive emotional haunting will continue even after the perpetrator(s) death!  The bright side here though, is that, at least the deceased creature(s) will no longer be available to reinforce the previous negative conditioning and reinforcement. 

   Also what I find most fascinating is, what if the parties inflicting this abuse were truly certifiable masochists?  Entertaining this scenario, these individuals would have had to been suppressed and conditioned similarly.  Therefore, as a means by which to satisfy their masochistic affinity for misery, they must have some other resource(s) available for them to fulfill this void; by emotionally suffering guilt as a result of their negative behavior toward themselves and the victim(s)! 

   Because of this exchanging of suppression and negativism, everyone involved in this scenario becomes a victim, whereby establishing a sadomasochistic relationship; co-dependency?  And what makes this so intriguing is that, none of the participants even having a clue as to what is taking place!  (Refer to my blog on Dependency/Co-Dependency/Independency/Interdependency

   As I have previously explained, subliminal conditioning is responsible for everyone’s emotional intentions and motivations in life.  This process will unequivocally engender any one of these scenarios: compassionate and prolific nurturing, or abandonment and/or negative influences. 

   This latter form of indoctrination could include an assortment of unfavorable variables, both overtly and subliminally.  As with abandonment, this does not necessarily infer actual physical desertion, as I feel physical exclusion would be significantly more favorable than exposure to emotional alienation and/or verbal and physical abuse. 

   And this is where luck (miracles) enters into the picture.  Even though genetics will play a vital role regarding our physiology, I believe the degree of moral fiber of the mentors responsible for the children’s emotional welfare to be paramount.  But unfortunately, no one ever has the opportunity to choose whom he or she might prefer as a parent or mentor.

   My opinion is that, our mentors will always impart a degree of their own emotional conditioning.  So basically, everyone will receive similar conditioning the mentors had acquired during their upbringing, and so on.  I look at this as a conditioning legacy, whereby accumulating various conditioning from others without ever experiencing the causations responsible for our and their conditioning.

   To further clarify my premise regarding generational conditioning, I believe this entails many latent and mysterious dynamics.  I view these unknowns, which are inherent within everyone’s unconscious inner-self, as being comparable with that as having a ghost within all of us.  I seriously believe that our identities comprise of current conditioning, in conjunction with the individuals’ conditioning from previous generations: family history, cultures etc.; we’re not even consciously aware of.  And this I perceive as true legacy.

   Everyone learns at a very young age, although unintentionally and unknowingly, the disguising of his or her feelings and thought processes from the discovery of others.  And because of ego-defense mechanisms, this phenomenon also entails obscuring the genuine dynamics of their feelings from their own consciousness.

   Even though verbal and/or physical behavior may be openly expressed, the genuine understanding of or reasoning for the interaction may never be consciously or rationally explained.

   To explain other aspects regarding this extremely intriguing subject on subliminal conditioning requires the understanding between consistent and inconsistent conditioning.  Some overly educated textbook logically focused psychologists believe consistent conditioning to be more detrimental than inconsistent conditioning.  My take on the subject is that, I view inconsistent conditioning having a much broader effect, since the input and stimuli will always be varying in unpredictable sequences and durations, beyond comprehension or anticipation.

   Another point of interest involves the term deconditioning.  Many in the psychology field believe everyone can be deconditioned.  To me, it would be impossible to become deconditioned; primarily because once we visibly appear to have recovered from the conditioning, the concealed emotional causation will continue to remain dormant, whereby, always the likelihood for reactivation.  I guess this is why they have introduced the field of Behavioral Modification.

   An EXTREMELY important component complementing subliminal conditioning, which I have commented on earlier, involves REINFORCEMENT.  Reinforcement serves to solidify (reinforce) subliminal conditioning. 

   And as I had explained earlier, if we were fortunate and received positive conditioning in conjunction with positive reinforcement, our outcome in life will be emotionally rewarding.  Conversely, if we were to have received negative conditioning, consisting of suppression and rejection, and also integrated negative reinforcement into the equation, this would result in a dysfunctional disaster.  

   Here’s another interesting phenomenon.  If someone is capable with convincing another party to believe the instigator to be emotionally content and secure, if effective, the acting-out individual will consciously acknowledge the assenting response from the individual being manipulated.  And amazingly, this individual will then actually believe him or herself to represent this transformation! 

   As another point of interest, I don’t believe anyone to be bad; it’s just that there are those who have been conditioned and reinforced learning how to behave poorly. 

   To incorporate an example regarding my theory on the complexities surrounding undisclosed communication, this occurs quite frequently with many families.  The mentors (parents/guardians) may overtly appear displaying positive feelings and behavior, while the subliminal feelings revealing to be negative or inhibited.  Or with the governing mentors expressing conflicting emotions, of which may be way out of moderation with the intentions they’re overtly pretending to convey.

   And this is when children experience uncertainty and begin their journey in life learning how to become emotionally confused and suppressed.  Overt negative behavior is pretty much openly understood and easy to identify, except when inhibitions are involved.  But when interacting with subliminal feelings, the communication becomes easily distorted and misconstrued.  The implications, both overt and subliminal, could be completely diverse.  And the worst thing about this whole scenario is; the mentors responding negatively toward the recipients (children), should they fail to understand or respond as expected. 

   To reiterate, subliminal conditioning will always involve our emotions.  And there are no possible resources by which to control, or to escape and avoid this phenomenon, other than by achieving self-awareness.  And this conditioning process transpires without the conscious awareness of all parties involved.  And most importantly, subliminal conditioning will always be designed and controlled by and for the self-centered motives of the designator(s).            

   What makes all of these philosophies and dogma so mysterious is that, only a finite number of individuals in today’s society will ever actually consciously experience and become aware of, or even concerned about these phenomena. 

   The apparent projection in today’s society seems just to be able to survive, while attempting to maintain a continued existence, with as little trauma as possible.  Since, if we have never truly experienced genuine peace and tranquility, how would we know what it was we were missing?  So why gamble on the unknown, and especially with the prospect of experiencing emotional conflicts?   And this is yet another classical conditioning and ego-defense mechanism phenomena.  Bon appétit!

   

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