Proof the Media is converging Natural Disasters with Terrorism to elicit "Conditioned Reflexes"

I'm not saying that Osama's face is absolutely going to pop into peoples visual cortex at the mere mention of a hurricane (you could be trained to that extent actually). However, the idea is you learn to fear one as much as the other, and to certain degrees as one in the same. The latter is especially relevant with people who have no concept about any of this, while being open to suggestion.

From an evolutionary perspective, human emotions such as fear are usefully considered to be dispositions to action. That is, they may have evolved from preparatory states evoked by threat cues, in which survival depended on delay or inhibition of overt behavior. In this sense, they derive from the first stage of defense that is associated with vigilance and immobility, when the organism is automatically mobilized, primed to respond, but not yet active. A measurable feature of this fear state is an exaggerated startle reflex to any suddenly imposed stimulus. It is an example of what cognitive psychologists call ‘priming’. That is, a prior stimulus or state raises the activation level of an associated S-R event, for example, as the prime ‘bread’ prompts a faster reaction time response to the word ‘butter’, or as a depressed person’s associations are persistently affectively negative.
www.stanford.edu...

The idea is the more you're subtlely shown these 'matched pairs', over time, the more this effect will take hold or at least the increase the odds of succesful conditioning. This is known as Reinforcement and touches on Operant Conditioning.

Originally posted by melatonin
Carrying on the psychological approach, repeating stimuli does lead to lessening of the emotional impact.

During a single session perhaps. And other things come into play such as if it is percieved as a legitimate threat.

Trials and testing aren't necessary.

Easy to say, unless you have actually had to develop conditioned responses in people or change pre-existing attitudes

They're associated being existential risks.

Here's another way of looking at it in terms you might be used to:
the images in my example show destruction, fear, helplessness, desperation, and so on. All are linked as existential risks, each a boogeyman. All of the above easing the association process. Ok, now here's your part: Thru the conditioned reflex concept, in light of the rest, each acts as a positive feedback loop in amplifying the others.

Then, in case if the subject is left/right based, there's always the "Sleeper Effect".

Persuasive messages are often accompanied by information that induces suspicions of invalidity. For instance, recipients of communications about a political candidate may discount a message coming from a representative of the opponent party because they do not perceive the source of the message as credible (e.g., Lariscy & Tinkham, 1999). Because the source of the political message serves as a discounting cue and temporarily decreases the impact of the message, recipients may not be persuaded by the advocacy immediately after they receive the communication. Over time, however, recipients of an otherwise influential message may recall the message but not the noncredible source and thus become more persuaded by the message at that time than they were immediately following the communication. The term sleeper effect has been used to denote such a delayed increase in persuasion observed when the discounting cue (e.g., noncredible source) becomes unavailable or “dissociated” from the communication in the memory of the message recipients.
www.psych.ufl.edu...

Next there's the Elaboration likelihood model, which involves how information is processed.

The ELM distinguishes between two routes to persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route. Central route processes are those that require a great deal of thought, and therefore are likely to predominate under conditions that promote high elaboration. Central route processes involve careful scrutiny of a persuasive communication (e.g., a speech, an advertisement, etc.) to determine the merits of the arguments.
...
Peripheral route processes, on the other hand, do not involve elaboration of the message through extensive cognitive processing of the merits of the actual argument presented. These processes often rely on environmental characteristics of the message, like the perceived credibility of the source, quality of the way in which it is presented, the attractiveness of the source, or the catchy slogan that contains the message.
...
The two factors that most influence which route an individual will take in a persuasive situation are motivation (strong desire to process the message) and ability (actually being capable of critical evaluation).
en.wikipedia.org...

With my provided example it rides the razors edge. You see it's crisis material, meaning it increases the odds of "flight" instead of "fight". Then with the helplessness and desperation (look at the way they reported the earthquake ) aspects it invokes emotional responses meaning it lessens the ability to intellectually process the doomsday sequence. The result, it would seem, thanks to high odds of peripheral processing, is a softer cognitive substrate for eliciting the conditioned response.


Over enough time and repetition the 'collective unconcsciousness' of the subject will eventually wear down. Then there's the maybe one 3rd of the population who believes in both forms of terror doomsday. Maybe they should ask themselves how they got that way.

Thus, most of the UK news (sky news) today is about a fire in a hotel that killed a few people. Then, we have the hurricane, followed by a climate change protest. No earthquake at all. I suppose you could try to make connections between them as well.

Well, actually, which hurricane are you talking about? If it's the one over here I don't see why it's necessary to lump in there, being the UK and all. But, here goes:
I'd help to see the the fire report, imagine if it was a fire caused by human error and they're reporting it as such, or simply throwing out the big IF potentially for human error. I imagine if there was room for raw emotion to be reported on they would have, thus framing the viewer into an irrational-emotional state. Next comes the hurricane report and big talk of WARM waters while throwing around IF's like in the clip I provided. Next comes the global warming protests, where it seems likely they went ahead and mentoned things like whatever freak weather events have been in the public eye, perhaps even something about Katrina. Am I gettng warm?

If you just want to say that the news is attempting to keep people in a vigilant and fearful state, maybe...

Could also be a tried and tested approach to ratings.

That's surely the case, and it has been for decades. Haven't you read State of Fear?

I've just watched a section of news about the hurricane. That was followed by the sports news. Man City beat Man Utd.
...
But you're still thinking this would produce a conditioned response, i.e. associating negative with negative. It would just bolster an already conditioned response, producing no real change.
...
I accept that terrorism and natural disasters are well-established as negative stimuli and concepts.

Reporting on our hurricane again? How many times are they going to bombard you guys with dramatic weather news from across "the pond"?

In any case, my news example deals with existential risks, which is what they are and they're associated by default for at least that reason alone. So that should answer your repeated mentioning of them only being "negative" association. Again, they're existential risks.

I still liked that news, and you could mix it with 25 pieces about death and destruction. The footie news would still make me happy

Of course, because it's activating entirely different emotions and neural procceses. Watch alternatring terrorism and global-warming/natural-disaster clips 24 times in a row and the processes involved have little difference, and whatever difference would blur over enough time, especially if the 'message' was subtle and unacknowledged.

But, you're attempting to go a tad further, no?

Well...


I can only speculate on how often pairings between these stressors occurs for the average consumer of Establishment Media, but hopefully some viewers of this thread may take note and report back over time.



[edit on 19-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

[edit on 19-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Anyone who's studied news production knows this is pretty standard stuff, but I do think you're overestimating the potential for the order that the news is reported in to influence people. Its whats in the reports that should be taken more seriously. Newsrooms are seriously restricted by time constraints and access to sources when it comes to producing the news, and often the headlines appear in the order of importance. I believe the hijacking you're refering to is the Turkish plane, therefore not affecting the American people as much as, say, the hurricane.

Perhaps its possible that, at the moment, this is subliminal propaganda, with everything about to kick off with Iran, but I really wouldn't read too much into this.

Just my thoughts



[edit on 19-8-2007 by DragonsDomain]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
The next time I find myself sitting down and attentively watching the news on TV, rather than simply reading it bit by bit as the day goes by online, I think I'll undertake a little study.

I'd like to look at the ordering of the stories and see if sometimes "lesser" stories seem to get a higher billing because of their general subject matter.

You might want to check out "Ordering Effects":

Anti-climax is the placement of an argument at the beginning of a piece of communication. It is considered the most effective in one-sided communications.

Pyramidal order is the placement of an argument in the middle of a piece of communication. It is considered the least effective of all presentation formats.

Climax is the placement of an argument at the end of communication. It is the most effective in two-sided communications.

Similar to the primacy/recency logic, this system of orders also incorporates the effectiveness of one-sided and two-sided placement logic.
www.ciadvertising.org...

The first and last arguments are always most affective. For my example you start with hurricanes and its related IF's, and then a hijacking that according to them was done by Al Qaeda.

But you're right in wondering about the effects of the way the sequece takes you for a ride thru each story to affect the way each next segment is percieved.

reply to post by IgnoranceIsntBlisss


IIB, no need for the lesson in psychology. I don't need it, honestly.

The problem is that in conditioning, if you associate two negative stimuli, you can't really produce a new conditioned behaviour.

For example, if I associate an eyeblink response with a picture of mutilated bodies. What's going to happen? Alternatively, I give a shock with a disgusting flavour. What will happen? Not much.

You already have a negative association for the picture. There's nothing to learn. The best you could do is just consolidate the already negative association.

But if I pair a shock with a neutral stimulus, then we can have a good effect. Or a reward with a neutral stimulus, the same.

Thus, when you say that news people are converging natural disasters (which is negative) and terrorism (which is negative), there's not much change really. Each alone would already produce a conditioned response. Together the most they can do is just enhance each other.

I'd rather not read 'state of fear', Crichton is a hack.

As I said earlier, I think the AIT trailer is a better case. Especially for people who have no real opinion in the issue of climate change.



[edit on 19-8-2007 by melatonin]

Originally posted by melatonin
Thus, when you say that news people are converging natural disasters (which is negative) and terrorism (which is negative), there's not much change really. Each alone would already produce a conditioned response. Together the most they can do is just enhance each other.

Um, i dont recall saying anything along the lines of A+B=C. C being some all new 'value' like the mathematical 'product' from multiplying 2 numbers together, or some new 'beast' entirely. Besides, you need 3 base values to make a spectrum.

So then you admit that they could/would in effect enhance each other? Dig.

I'd rather not read 'state of fear', Crichton is a hack.

Hey, don't look at anything that doesn't support your view. Interesting habit for someone with psychology understanding/background. So you decided that without reading his book?
Just in case: The concept behind the title is that Western Culture has been in an unending perpetual 'state of fear' for decades, and when one item of fear fades new ones rise up to take their place. For example "Global Warming" just so happened to become the big deal during the same year that the Cold War was de facto finished. I think it was when Hansen first went before Congress.


[edit on 19-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Um, i dont recall saying anything along the lines of A+B=C. C being some all new 'value' like the mathematical 'product' from multiplying 2 numbers together, or some new 'beast' entirely. Besides, you need 3 base values to make a spectrum.

So then you admit that they could/would in effect enhance each other? Dig.

In a way, yes. But that's not really conditioning. It would just be a temporary increase in arousal and negative affect, which would lead into the next item. There's only so far you can be aroused really. Afterwards, there wouldn't be any real change in associations. Both would still be negative.

There's lots of experiments doing this sort of thing, i.e. invoking affective states before processing information. And it is important. But tends to be temporary. For example, put someone in a good mood, get them to rate a load of politicians, and they'll tend to rate them higher than they would with no incidental mood effect. This is the Affect-as-information style of theory.

Conditioning is fairly easy with neutral and novel stimuli. Harder with well-learned emotional associations.

The bit where you talk about persuasion is true. Emotions are a fairly effective avenue to alter attitudes. Basically because most attitudes are primarily based in an automatic and rapid emotion. Emotions are considered primary (e.g. Zajonc, 1980). But even using emotional challenges to change attitudes like racial prejudice is difficult. Can work, but not easily.

Conditioning is amygdala-mediated. And these sorts of associations are relatively indelible if overlearned. Thus, why we see explicit racial attitudes changing, but widespread evidence of implicit racial (automatic) attitudes.

Hey, don't look at anything that doesn't support your view. Interesting habit for someone with psychology understanding/background. So you decided that without reading his book?

I read reviews, I've seen parts of the arguments it contains. He misrepresents much of the science and talks a lot of BS. I also have better stuff to read.

But if you like it, then that's cool.

[edit on 19-8-2007 by melatonin]

Good thread IIB. Overall I agree with your assertion, even if your specific examples can be faulted one way or another. Change agents attempting to alter the way we see things can be found everywhere; indeed, I believe I’ve found such in this very thread, in the below post.

Originally posted by oldone


www.world-mysteries.com...

This one is explains mind control thru the media. very interesting and disturbing at the same time. I have revised my TV viewing after reading this article.

www.world-mysteries.com...

I find nothing in this post or in the articles linked to that I disagree with. In fact I find the articles very informative and truthful. The subtle attempt to influence is present in the several small grammatical errors that are present. I might not have noticed had these same type of errors not been present in the post itself. I’ve seen this type of thing before, and I believe that it’s intended to effect the more literate reader who is likely to associate such small errors with the facts presented and so tend to discount what is being related in the article. Even the most basic word processor such as I have will correct a lot of these types of errors. Also, you would expect such a well done web sight as that linked to, to have better proofreading than what is exhibited. I’m not accusing you oldone, just observing.

reply to post by Gools


If I could applaud you for that I would, but I can't....so I gave you two stars.

Oh and this is not a one liner.

Well it's not new to me the tv news is "infotainment" & i'd add some more on this: it's the same thing everywhere on earth either it's nbc,cnn fox or your local tv network.
The sad thing in all that is for the people who are not enough cultivated and take for granted what is brought to them within the tubes.
I was always taught since i was a child to "learn to read between the lines" Well i guess in these days & age i can safely say "learn to get the interesting infos between the pixels" although that doesn't necesarily mean it's accurate info.

And like it's far more complicated i believe to get that piece of info out of the garbage when you watch Tv i have developed a unique technique: i hear with one ear only,decompress all this in .wav format in my brain, apply a low pass filter to keep the 10 kilo hertz band only ,delete what's left as soon as i can...and there i go ready for a new day to come.And for the video part? Well you can't do nothing for that sorry folk, once it's in your brain it's "por la vida hombre" it's like a bad disease.Usually that part erase all by itself after i'd say 1 good week but it can always come back you never know,careful!

That's why i like the net so much these days it's like the best of both worlds: the smoothness of readings and the madness of the video so you can get far more relevant info...in my opinion.

Originally posted by melatonin

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Um, i dont recall saying anything along the lines of A+B=C. C being some all new 'value' like the mathematical 'product' from multiplying 2 numbers together, or some new 'beast' entirely. Besides, you need 3 base values to make a spectrum.

So then you admit that they could/would in effect enhance each other? Dig.

In a way, yes. But that's not really conditioning. It would just be a temporary increase in arousal and negative affect, which would lead into the next item. There's only so far you can be aroused really. Afterwards, there wouldn't be any real change in associations. Both would still be negative.

You're seriously oversimplifying cognition and conditioning, and then turning those oversimplifications into dogma.

If your logic was true then people wouldn't have learned to associate Osama with Hussein, and the Bush admins attempts to train us to do such would have been futile. After all, in your logic, each on is only a negative. We're dealing in absolutes right? It's either a positive, a negative, or maybe a neutral. Neutral basically meaning it didn't even happen.

So Osama is a negative. Hussein is a negative. If they're presented in the same light then initiailly the subject will be temporarily aroused to a greater degree, but we can only be aroused so far and afterwards "there wouldn't be any real change in associations. Both would still be negative. "

Or are you ready to argue that millions of people weren't trained to associate Osama with Hussein? They were each just "negatives", nothing more. People didn't learn to fear Hussein as much as they did Osama, because each were just negatives. Nevermind mind that they were already conceptually associated by various factors such as being Middle Eastern, THEM (opposed to us), terrorist financiers, enemies, etc. They were just negatives, bottom line. We only think in positives and negatives.

Because of this narrow 'reality' in human cognition, there's no way that the brain would ever associate the states and degrees of anxiety and terror between distasters and terrorist threats, after all they each aren't existential threats, or THEM (external threats), etc. These are all just negatives and it ends there.

[edit on 19-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by melatonin

I think it goes even a step further. The media is controlling how people feel and think. They change the wording so as to pull or tug at our emotions. This wouldn't bother me so much if the issues weren't so important. I tend to side with the idea that the manipulation does go deeper. There's a vid on YouTube all about Fox and Robert Greenwald talking about his movie Out Foxed. The ugly slant FOX puts on all their news stories. I think this type of "journalism" is the worst thing happening to us today. These people are standing on a platform they don't deserve. I thought being a journalist meant you had eithics and morals and fought to find truth. I must be naive.

Pavlov's dogs anyone?

Yes, I can see where the order of the stories are very suspicious.. While I am not certain that the intention was to do what you are insinuating, in some minds, that will certainly be the effect.

Conditioned responses have a pretty colorful history in psychology.

Pavlov became interested in studying reflexes when he saw that the dogs drooled without the proper stimulus. Although no food was in sight, their saliva still dribbled. It turned out that the dogs were reacting to lab coats. Every time the dogs were served food, the person who served the food was wearing a lab coat. Therefore, the dogs reacted as if food was on its way whenever they saw a lab coat.

In a series of experiments, Pavlov then tried to figure out how these phenomena were linked. For example, he struck a bell when the dogs were fed. If the bell was sounded in close association with their meal, the dogs learnt to associate the sound of the bell with food. After a while, at the mere sound of the bell, they responded by drooling.

Pavlov

Originally posted by Gools
The news has always been one disaster after another. In fact they go out of their way to look for stories of human misery to present to you.

You can say that again:


[edit on 20-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

reply to post by melatonin


Another example of how you're oversimplifying is how you seem to keep your descriptive cognitive framework wrapped around some narrow view of Classical Conditioning, when since those days understanding of far more complex training systems like Operant Conditioning has evolved. I don't study the news broadcasts enough, but it wouldn't surprise me to hear about there being some established formula they use that allows for a program of learning their fear mechanisms even from casual/intermittent observance. That is the formula is tuned for the random exposures to still function in some sophisticated operant methods.

In my view, it's foolish to assume that they don't know exactly what the effects of their broadcasts will have on their viewers, at least better than anyone else. Billions of dollars annually goes into studies of the cognitive effects of media (propaganda), so how are we to assume they aren't exactly the ones with such knowledge, and then give them the benefit of the doubt that whatever effects their broadcasts have are merely the result of their ignorance?

[edit on 20-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
You're seriously oversimplifying cognition and conditioning, and then turning those oversimplifications into dogma.

Aye, if you say-so, disagreeing with you is essentially dogma.

If your logic was true then people wouldn't have learned to associate Osama with Hussein, and the Bush admins attempts to train us to do such would have been futile. After all, in your logic, each on is only a negative. We're dealing in absolutes right? It's either a positive, a negative, or maybe a neutral. Neutral basically meaning it didn't even happen.

If we are talking about true conditioning, then yes. Emotion can reduced to reward and punishment. Negative and positive. If you are trying to say that two negative emotions like disgust and fear have slightly different neural correlates and affective qualities, then, yeah, they do. But there is also considerable overlap.

Neutral essentially applies to something which has no or minimal pre-existing emotional tags.

Associating Osama with Saddam I would think was a case of recategorisation. Both I would think already had negative associations with most people, as bad dudes. And if they didn't, labelling them appropriately would ensure this.

So, what would be happening would be a recategorisation that is essentially saying Osama = saddam, i.e. Osama terrorist, Saddam despot to; Osama = terrorist, Saddam = terrorist. We are fighting a war on terror, therefore we are also fighting Saddam. And it worked well with many people.

Which do you think is easier? Recategorising Saddam from despotic bad dude to terrorist, or recategorising Saddam to freedom fighter?

So Osama is a negative. Hussein is a negative. If they're presented in the same light then initiailly the subject will be temporarily aroused to a greater degree, but we can only be aroused so far and afterwards "there wouldn't be any real change in associations. Both would still be negative. "

Or are you ready to argue that millions of people weren't trained to associate Osama with Hussein? They were each just "negatives", nothing more. People didn't learn to fear Hussein as much as they did Osama, because each were just negatives. Nevermind mind that they were already conceptually associated by various factors such as being Middle Eastern, THEM (opposed to us), terrorist financiers, enemies, etc. They were just negatives, bottom line. We only think in positives and negatives.

But this isn't what we would really call conditioning. Plus, this is different than your original claim. You're talking about the behaviourist physiological tradition when you focus on 'conditioned reflexes', classical and operant conditioning. And to say that bringing together natural disasters and terrorism will produce conditioning is basically wrong. Sorry. It's like saying bringing together two fearful stimuli causes conditioned reflexes - they already do alone.

Concept and constructs become labelled with an emotional valence. And recategorisation is just as effective in motivating action and altering behaviour. Again, in my own research area, we know that relabelling black people as part of the in-group can reduce prejudice, i.e. recategorisation. Usually temporarily.

Because of this narrow 'reality' in human cognition, there's no way that the brain would ever associate the states and degrees of anxiety and terror between distasters and terrorist threats, after all they each aren't existential threats, or THEM (external threats), etc. These are all just negatives and it ends there.

They are associated by evoking threat. That is, they are both fearful stimuli. No need for any conditioning in most people. When I was a child and I first heard the word hurricane, it was a neutral stimuli. It had no pre-existing emotional tags.

When I leaned that hurricanes cause death and destruction, I learned to associate hurricane with negative outcome and threat. That is, it is a secondary reinforcer. Same goes for terrorism. They are essentially in the same category as far as they are emotionally similar, both are threats, both can cause death and destruction. No recategorisation required.

And associating them in a news item will have little effect on conditioned reflexes.

[edit on 20-8-2007 by melatonin]

one can give that presentation of 'News' any fancy, flowery, or Academic label that suits the author and their agenda.

One can equally equate that 'news' style with the pornography model,
of pushing the buttons of some people's inner drives... or see it as the reflex of rubbernecking the accident your passing by.

no great/profound psychological groundbreaking insights here...

thanks though


[edit on 20-8-2007 by St Udio]

Originally posted by IgnoranceIsntBlisss
Another example of how you're oversimplifying is how you seem to keep your descriptive cognitive framework wrapped around some narrow view of Classical Conditioning, when since those days understanding of far more complex training systems like Operant Conditioning has evolved.

I'm barely talking about cognition. The recategorisation ideas are from cognitive frameworks though.

If I condition someone to have a conditioned reflex to a bell, like Pavlov, where is cognition? It is a rapid, automatic, uncontrolled physiological process. That is, an emotional process. Reward and punishment. stimulus-response. Operant conditioning is about forming behavioural responses from reward/punishment reinforcement. Thus, teaching pigeons to peck at a button for food, more an R-S type of conditioning.

I think your news item claim has little to do with operant/instrumental conditioning. Unless you are saying that presenting negative punishing stimuli over and over reinforces the response behaviour of pressing the 'off' button

If you now want to criticise behaviourist conditioning frameworks for simplification of human behaviour, yeah, most psychologists would agree. But the processes still work, and that was what you were focusing on - conditioned reflexes. Which is a Pavlovian-style associative conditioning and leads to reflexive physiological responses to stimuli.

The news essentially just shows lots of negative stuff. No need to watch it to know that, but if you want a grand theory of their motivations, it might make sense to. Extrapolating from single selected cases is likely to be a poor indicator. Do a proper experiment, select random dates and times to assess the news items. Collect lots of data. Do some stats. Make an inference from the data.

I sit and watch news a lot. UK news admittedly. The one definite characteristic is that it is full of doom and gloom. If you want to say that this is because they want to keep people vigilant, unhappy, in a negative state and, perhaps, reward-seeking. Then I feel that is more supportable.

Ask yourself why they want you in a negative mood, possibly leading to a more impulsive reward-seeking state

Happy consumers, high-seekers, fast-food eaters. Maybe? I dunno, suppose there is an experiment there. Show lots of negative news and see how they perform on emotion-based decision-making paradigms like the Iowa Gambling Task. A fearful state probably wouldn't work as this leads to risk-aversion, less impulsivity. But make people depressed and in a state of negative mood, reward-seeking can be a result.

You know, IIB, don't take what I'm saying badly, just see it as a discussion which gives you a chance to improve and streamline your argument. You don't need everyone to agree with your every word do you?

[edit on 20-8-2007 by melatonin]

Very interesting, but I'm not sure I understand. The "left" uses global-warming and natural disasters, and the "right" uses terrorism, both to gain votes? Is this some sort of game for them, to see who will be the best propagandist? I wonder.. But why would they try to associate global-warming and terrorism, what's in for them? Anyway, very nice topic IgnoranceIsntBliss, you've put a lot of effort in it and it shows.

[edit on 20-8-2007 by Atlantix]

Really interesting stuff. I am writing a short documentary for a class on "The role of media in american history" which i changed to "the media in the development of america"

reply to post by KezigluBey



Check this out:
Notes Towards A Politics Of Fear
It should help ya. Let me know when its done...

[edit on 20-8-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]