Behavioral Conditioning In Brave New World By Aldous Huxley

Even though behavioral conditioning receives much negative attention, the concept plays a major part in today’s society, such as it does in Huxley's Brave New World. Society routinely subjects itself to operant condition through occurrences such as attaining “points” for losing weight at a fitness club or collecting a different variety points through a club card in hopes to receive a “free gift” (Burgemeester). A single day wouldn’t suffice without the influence of behavioral conditioning. Businesses would receive a lack of attention and, consequently, a lost of economic profits. With the aid of behavioral conditioning, clients become more accustomed to a business's products and more likely to repurchase. Therefore, behavioral conditioning,

in minor forms, majorly affects the common routine of society and its basic functioning.

Huxley parallels the conditioning’s impact more drastically within Brave New World. The fictional society’s common presence of the conditioning center and its routine treatments is only a single example of the conditioning’s impact. Within the center, delta-casted infants are conditioned to receive little intelligence and to have a high sense of consumerism through “books and loud noises, flowers and electrics shocks...compromisingly linked...and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly” (Huxley). Similar to today’s ordinary presence of behavioral conditioning, the society within Huxley's satire is based upon conditioning for nearly each citizen has become accustomed to and has been conditioned. Even though conditioning appears in different intensities when comparing the two societies, it still greatly defines and contributes to the society’s way of life. A community will be more able-bodied with the over looming presence of gym points or there might be a high sense of social order as society is conditioned to achieve certain

personalities.
Behavioral conditioning, however, differs when comparing the complexity of conditioning techniques used in current society and those used in Brave New World.

Cognitive behavior therapy frequently utilizes “The ABC Model of Behaviour Management. The model is so simple, yet it at the heart of managing challenging behaviour. It involves the application operant conditioning which is there to reinforce desirable behaviours” (Burgemeester). No advanced technology is required nor used to perform this specific treatment. Simply, the overseers reward the patient for performing the desired behavior or action. Once the patient identifies what behavior is being reward, they constantly, or more frequently, perform what is rewarded. However, with extremely advanced technology, behavioral conditioning is intensified within the society within Brave New World. The futuristic technology includes requiring the harvested embryos to endure “hot tunnels alternated with cool tunnels. Coolness was wedded to discomfort in the form of hard x-rays. By the time they were decanted the embryos had a horror of cold. They were predestined to emigrate to the tropics, to be miners and acetate silk spinners and steel workers” (Huxley). The process illustrated by Huxley involves not only a vast array of technology, bul also a great amount of knowledge and research. Unlike what is used today, behavioral conditioning within Huxley’s fictional society embodies an excessive process, leading to a

highly developed society. Even though behavioral conditioning has greatly affected both societies, the excessive conditioning within Huxley’s society allows a rapid pace of development. This is so for the fictional society is conditioned solely for that purpose by each individual being condition for a minor purpose, which overall leads to a higher achievement of the community collaboratively. The complexity of the behavioral conditioning process greatly differs between both societies, overall leading to a great distinction between pace of advancement and current development.
Many people considered behavioral conditioning an underdeveloped topic and although it was introduced about two centuries ago, criticism has kept advancement minimal. With so little discovered, there is seemingly endless opportune for research and development. Similar to the behavioral conditioning process in Brave New World, research found that “phasic activation of these neurons was sufficient to drive behavioral conditioning...These results demonstrate that phasic dopaminergic activity is sufficient to mediate mammalian behavioral conditioning.” (Feng). Processes to enhance the effectiveness of behavioral conditioning are developing and causing the advancement of conditioning to an intensity more similar to that of Brave New World. Treatments involving behavioral conditioning will not only become more common, but more effective and overall decrease the number of patients enduring conditions that can be corrected with the treatment. The field of health concerns that can be treated with behavioral conditioning is expanding as physical health problems have found to improve with the treatment. Patients suffering from chronic back pain “ realized that it is not necessary to be totally free from pain to perform exercises... Deliberate neglect of complaints of pain and pain behavior was useful in the treatment of the patients” (Lindstrom). Behavior therapy is now being wielded to shape the patient’s mind and reduce physical pain to comfortably perform certain tasks. As behavior condition expands and become more versatile in the medical field, its treatments will become more common and easily accessible. Overall, the medical industry will greatly benefit and advance as behavior therapy progress to become more effective, versatile, and accessible.