To what extent have we been conditioned into behaving?

To what extent have we been conditioned into behaving?

Recently, I read about a class at the University of Minnesota and their psychology professor: they managed to condition their professor a week after he told them about learning without awareness. Every time he moved towards the right side of the room, they paid more attention and laughed more heartily at his jokes, until—apparently—they were able to condition him right out of the door.

Hilarious, right? Imagine conditioning your teacher to leave the class. Then think about this in the context of performing femininity. So many women deny having been influenced to shave, wear makeup or wear heels, claiming they do it for themselves. But when you are receiving compliments and are being treated better when you do those things, there’s definitely influence at play. The same goes for diet culture: you claim to be doing it for yourself but the thinner you are, the better you’re treated, with overweight people treated much better if they explain they are losing weight or dieting.

A psychologist at a girl’s college asked the members of his class to compliment any girl wearing red. Within a week, according to W Lambert Gardiner in Psychology: A Story of a Search, the cafeteria was blaze of red. None of the girls were aware of being influenced, although they did notice that the atmosphere was more friendly.

Returning to makeup, we can defend a person’s right to wearing it (and we certainly should) vociferously, but we have to recognise the social conditioning at play. Societies tend to treat attractive people more favourably in all of life’s arenas, but consider the personal conditioning going on too. I can’t conceptualise regularly wearing makeup not messing with your perception of your natural face. The more often you wear concealer or apply mascara, the more obvious the bags under your eyes are without it, the splotchier your skin looks, and the shorter and stumpier your eyelashes appear. Nothing physically changed about your face, but applying those products inherently involves viewing them as flaws to be concealed or improved upon. We are taught, and we teach ourselves, to correct these features, to view our natural faces as imperfect, or gross, or bad. 

There’s even a psychological term for this used by behaviourists: operant conditioning. This is the process by which learning occurs through reinforcement and punishment, forming an association between a certain behaviour and the consequences of that behaviour. Wear red clothes, get complimented, be more likely to wear red clothes in the future. Think about the conditioning that goes on from the moment you’re born:

Girls who are loud or opinionated are bossy, overbearing or cold; boys are praised for their assertiveness when they boss people around. Girls like pink and boys like blue. Girls should be meek and mild, thin and beautiful; boys should be strong and powerful, tall and fit. Girls are good at English but not maths and science; boys are the engineers and leaders of the future.

Becoming more conscious of the patriarchy and the systems in place to keep our world a ‘man’s world’ is one thing; dissecting and unlearning years of conditioning is another. Society is well-versed in disguising sexism and training women to be submissive towards it. Do what you want for yourself: don’t let this dissuade you from practicing or enjoying the things that make you feel feminine or beautiful but recognise where this behaviour comes from.