Buddy 1997: Unintended Conditioning

Marjoryn O. Paglinawan February 22, 2017
2014-67221 Psych 140- B
The movie Buddy 1997 tells the story of how an animal lover named Mrs. Trudy taught Buddy, a gorilla, on how to act like a person, but things got complicated when Buddy grew up and became stronger. Then a traumatic event happened to him, whenever he feels threatened, he smashes everything he sees. Mrs. Trudy attempted to eliminate Buddy’s trauma, but unfortunately she failed. With that, she just decided to let go of Buddy for her family’s sake and for Buddy’s sake also. There were two types of classical conditioning illustrated in the movie. First was the intended type of conditioning and the second was the unintended type of conditioning. The intended conditioning

portrayed in the movie was when Trudy intentionally conditioned Buddy to walk and eat like a person by complimenting Buddy whenever he ate properly.

On the other hand, when Buddy became afraid of loud noises because of the traumatic event that happened to him, Buddy was conditioned unintentionally. It was unintentional. The unintentional conditioning was the climax of the movie therefore it should be emphasized.
There were two events where unintended conditioning was illustrated. The first was when Buddy was conditioned to be attracted to the color red. What happened was when Buddy entered the master bedroom and found Mrs. Trudy putting red colored lipstick on her lips, Buddy instantly became attracted to its color, because he associated the presence of Mrs. Turdy to the color red. The color red was the neutral stimulus and the presence of Mrs. Turdy became the unconditioned stimulus that elicited an unconditioned response which was the feeling of security and safety because Mrs. Turdy is there for him. The red color, then becomes the conditioned stimulus and the feeling of safety and security then became the conditioned response. Another situation where conditioning was unintended was when buddy became afraid of loud noises like the loud beating of drums. When Buddy participated the Chicago World’s Fair he accidentally got lost and went to a public

market which is an unusual place to him. Triggered by the unpleasant reaction he received from the people and the loud sound of the drums Buddy felt threatened, that’s why he smashed everything he saw in the street. That was a traumatic event for Buddy because it was his first time to encounter those kind of people. Mrs. Turdy luckily found Buddy and was able to send Buddy home. That traumatic situation made Buddy afraid of loud noises because when he was lost that loud noise which is the loud sound of the drums became a signal to him that people are going to haunt him. The neutral stimulus was the loud noise, associated with the people hurting Buddy, the unconditioned stimulus elicited an unconditioned response which is fear. The neutral stimulus later on became the conditioned stimulus which elicits a conditioned response. Buddy became afraid of loud noises. The concept of Generalization can also be applied in the movie. Buddy became afraid of the sound of the beating of drums, but Buddy also feared the sound of thunder. When a storm came and hit Mrs. Trudy’s place the sound of thunder was heard all over the house, Buddy panicked and escaped his cage. He destroyed the furnitures inside the house and tried to hurt Mrs. Trudy. Buddy responded to a stimulus in the same way that he responded to a sound of the beating of the drums. In this case generalization occurred.
It would be difficult to eliminate an unintended conditioned behavior because the cause of it is unknown. Mrs. Trudy tried to calm Buddy by explaining to him that it’s just the storm and she is there to protect him but Buddy acted otherwise. Mrs. Trudy didn’t know the cause of Buddy’s trauma that is why she found it difficult to cure Buddy.