Mental conditioning

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Mental conditioning is the process through which the mind is induced to adopt certain mental patterns, tendencies and/or mental states.

Mental conditioning may be attributable to several causes - mass media, society, peers, parents etc. All of these may directly or indirectly create mental conditioning.

For example, a child may want a toy but the parent refuses to buy it for him. When the child starts crying, the parent may tell him crying is bad and it should not be done in public. This belief may or may not be embedded in the child through the first instance alone. Several instances of reinforcement may be required before the mental tendency results. This is based on reinforcement learning theory. In time, the child may interpret crying in public to be 'bad' i.e. not acceptable in certain situations and thus modify its behaviour. The conditioning may continue into adulthood or may be changed as time goes on.

Whether the effects of this conditioning are detrimental or beneficial is open to interpretation.

Some people would consider it beneficial as it allows the individual through behavioural modification and attitudinal adjustment to interact and transact with others, enabling the development of relationships with others and to meet the needs of the individual and collective needs of a group such as society. This is said with reference to transaction theory.

Others contend that mental conditioning results in the inhibition of natural impulses and suppression of feelings leading to damage of the psyche and problems such as complexes, neuroses and other mental illnesses and mental disorders.

[edit] Brainwashing and propaganda

Mental conditioning is not the same as brainwashing and propaganda, although both could be treated as sub-types. In most cases, brainwashing and propaganda are used to impress or induce a particular pattern of thinking, belief system in the individual(s) who are subjected to it.

[edit] Views on mental conditioning

In many ways, all individuals are mentally conditioned in some way or another. This becomes apparent when we take into account the different attitudes, beliefs, likes and dislikes we all have. These largely tend to result from parents, later from peers, friends, colleagues, mass media, organizations, movements and so on.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing is debatable. It allows our minds, to construct a fixed model of reality, thus allowing us to perceive and more importantly, to interpret it. It could be said that a fixed construct of our mind allows us an interpretation of the world or reality in a way that makes sense to us.

However, many spiritual teachings (an example would be Buddhist philosophy) and spiritual teachers, Eckhart Tolle being a prominent example, contend that the mind is incapable of grasping the true nature of reality. The mind is supposed to only be able to comprehend through concepts and entities, which are fixed. Accordingly, the ever-changing nature of reality and its essence cannot be comprehended by it. Consciousness, on the other hand, which may be loosely said to be observance without mental commentary or activity, enables knowing of reality in a much more concrete manner. Some may argue that this premise is debatable. This is because it could be contended that even apparent neutral observance without mental activity can only be performed through the mind, where the mind is assumed to be a subjective instrument of perception. In other words how can we perceive objectively when everything we perceive is governed by the perceiving instrument and hence influenced by it? All of this, of course, moves into the metaphysical and is subject to speculation.

However, the danger posed by mental conditioning is that if the construct is highly skewed and not at all related or only slightly related to actual reality, the individual may experience problems dealing with reality.