Marcos Manuel Islas Pacheco

102683

Group: LP30

Subject: (35) SEMINAR ON THEORIES AND CURRENTS

CONTEMPORARIES OF PSYCHOLOGY I

Teacher: Mtra. Nayeli Alejandra Betanzos Lara

Learning Activity 4. Analyzing the movie: the techniques

behaviorists for behavioral change

San Pedro Cholula, Puebla. February 7, 2022

Instructions:

1. Watch the movie A Clockwork Orange (1971) directed by Stanley Kubrick. Carry out a
essay of at least five pages where the main topic is 'the techniques'
"conductists for behavioral change." The essay must contain the
following points:

Introduction: clear exposition of the topics to be addressed in the essay, the objective and

context of it.

Development: analysis and critical arguments that discuss the techniques for the
behavioral modification in the movie and in general, in behavioral therapies.
At least five external sources should be consulted to support the
arguments.

Conclusion: personal critique where you expose your perspective about these.
therapeutic procedures for behavior modification, as well as the
ethical elements in them.
Introduction.

This essay conducts an analysis of the film A Clockwork Orange, which

In broad strokes, it deals with Alex, who is a young man that spends his days mistreating, assaulting, and

hurt people with their group of friends for no apparent reason other than that of the
pure enjoyment. In one of the attacks, Alex murders a woman and is sentenced to 14 years in
prison.
Two years later, he learns that there is "a treatment that gets you out of prison and makes
that you never come back again.” He consults with the priest who speaks to him about the 'Technique.

"Ludovico" and that, according to what he understood, was in phase of

experimentation and carried certain dangers.
This 'Ludovico Technique' is fictional, which actually refers to a Therapy of
Aversion, this therapy would consist of a behavioral treatment for modification of
behavior and I would assure Alex the complete removal of his wickedness within two
weeks.
During this essay, this technique used will be discussed, as well as the theory.
psychological behaviorism, and the theory of Ivan P. Pavlov, which in my analysis are
fundamental parts in the movie we watched.
Development.

Behaviorism arises from a psychological theory and is later adapted for use in the
education this is the first theory that will strongly influence the way how we
understands human learning. Behaviorism is a school of psychology that has
deeply accompanied and marked the history of psychology, of science and of the
Western social history of the 20th century, based on the concept that only behavior,
as a measurable phenomenon, it can be studied. An orientation that has expressed a
therapeutic model based on symptom resolution and modification of
behavior, building therapies on conditioning techniques and
thawing, where a positive behavior is associated with a positive reinforcement and
Conversely, behaviorist theory, since its origins, focuses on observable behavior.
trying to conduct a completely empirical study of it and wanting to control and
predict this behavior.
A pioneer in research under controlled laboratory conditions was the
psychologist Edward Thorndike. According to his theory, learning is explained as a
connection or link between a stimulus (E) that occurs in the environment, a response (R) that
it occurs in the person's brain and the effect that comes immediately after
as a reward.
Therefore, the main objective of behaviorism is the prediction and modification of
behavior through an associative learning method called 'conditioning'.
Orthodox behaviorists initially viewed the mind as an invisible black box.
and were irrelevant and limited themselves to talking about 'learned behaviors', they were based on the system

Watsonian of the 'stimulus-response', with the individual being a blank slate upon which
it acted as conditioning. So we talk about a human being endowed with
behaviors, but not of the mind, an individual who responds in an automatic and repetitive manner
in response to environmental stimuli. Based on this, there are two types of
conditioning

Classical conditioning.

Now, the Classical Conditioning Theory also called conditioning

Pavlovian, respondent conditioning based on the stimulus-response model or
associative learning (E-R), is a type of associative learning that derives from the
experiments of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov.

This author devised experiments with dogs that are the basis of conditioning.
classic, who during the study of the canine digestive system noted that the animals
they salivated when exposed to stimuli associated with food without the need for
physical presence of this.
Every time he put the food down, Pavlov rang a bell, so that,
when the dog heard it, he associated that sound with food and would salivate. Thus, the dog
was giving a response (in this case, salivation) to a stimulus (the bell). The
next time I heard the bell, regardless of whether it was associated with food,
I would start to salivate.

Classical conditioning learning is one of the most significant theories of

scientific psychology, and also one of the most controversial.

Main characteristics of Behaviorism:

The attempt to predict and control behavior empirically and experimentally

Teaching is presented as a program that modifies the student's behavior.
Conditions the student to perform previously defined activities.
Develop students who are receptive to information.
Encourages the memorization of the contents.

Operant conditioning.

Following classical conditioning, a variant was developed that introduced factors

called reinforcers (rewards or punishments), for the purpose of reaffirming a
desired behavior or suppress an undesirable one.

This version mainly driven by Thorndike and Skinner is known as

operant or instrumental conditioning.
Operant conditioning proposes, then, that the subject does not learn merely through a
stimulus based on biological needs (such as being fed) but rather it is
it is necessary to apply the use of positive reinforcers (rewards) or negative reinforcement, which
consists of the subtraction of an element within the learning scheme that is sufficient
to "persuade" the individual to continue the desired behavior.
Thus, an example would be the operant conditioning of a child to increase their hours.
of piano study through positive reinforcement (by rewarding him with his favorite candy) or
negative reinforcement (telling them that they will not have to do some previously assigned task)
he dedicates more hours of study to the piano.
In addition to reinforcers as a method to "cement" the learning of a behavior
desired, operant conditioning considers the use of punishment with a function
of weakening an undesirable behavior, by adding an element
unpleasant to the learning scheme.

Operant conditioning proposes that the subject does not learn from a mere stimulus.
biological, but it is necessary to apply reinforcements or punishments.

Aversive therapy.

Now moving on to the topic of the movie A Clockwork Orange, we can observe the therapy.
aversive which operationally consists of administering an aversive stimulus to
inhibit an undesirable emotional response, thus reducing its intensity.
habit. For example, a painful stimulus can be used to inhibit arousal.
sexual that produces a fetish object. Aversion is widely used in treatment
of obsessions, compulsions, fetishism, and attraction habits towards people or
inappropriate objects, for example, homosexuality which in years past was considered a
problem for people.
The essence of aversive therapy is to dispense, in the presence of the stimulus that produces
the undesirable response, an intense aversive stimulus, such as electrical stimulation
strong, in one extremity.

Firstly, Alex is drugged and sitting in a chair in front of a large screen.

projection. Then, they tie him up by the feet and hands, and put a small thing over his eyes.

device to prevent them from being closed. The procedure finally begins:
Meanwhile, in the corners of the room, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is playing.
preferred by Alex), this type of aversion therapy consists of mandatory exposure
the patient in front of violent images for long periods of time, while he/she is
"stuck immobilized under the effects of drugs that cause discomfort and anguish."
forces the patient to see images of horrific rapes, assaults, and other acts of
violence while suffering the anguish induced by the drugs provided, so that
associate the feelings of discomfort and deep anguish with these acts of violence,
creating an aversive conditioning so that he/she suffers further from that anguish in the
situations that provoke it, leaving him incapacitated to respond violently even
when violent response is justified as legitimate self-defense.

The Ludovico technique is an artistic copy of the psychological phenomenon known as

classical conditioning, a process initiated by the Russian psychologist, philosopher, and physiologist Ivan

Pavlov as we mentioned before, creator of behaviorism.

psychology. In the story of A Clockwork Orange, when the protagonist Alex is treated
DeLarge with this technique, just as was done with Pavlov's dogs, is acclimated to
a high aversion both physical and psychological to the controlled stimulus presented to it.

The first formal use of Aversive Therapy appears to have been the work of Kantorovich (1929),
who administered painful electric shocks to some alcoholic patients in front of,
the smell and taste of alcohol.

Now taking into account what has been previously mentioned, we return to the original argument, the

Ludovico treatment, which is a genuinely behaviorist therapy, addressing the

described in the previous manner, we can classify it as classical conditioning and
operant conditioning

On one hand, it can be seen as a form of classical conditioning, in which it

presents an unconditioned stimulus - injection - that generates a response
unconditional - discomfort and nausea - and a neutral stimulus - violent images and
sexuals -. The goal is to associate the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned response, it is
to say, violence with physical discomfort. If Alex is exposed to the treatment for a year.
they make me feel pain with violence and sexual desire without the need to apply it
injection.

It can also be considered as operant conditioning, if we take into account

that in this type of conditioning, the desired behaviors are generally,
volunteers and Alex decides to voluntarily submit himself to the experiment, motivated by the
that seems to be a "genuine" desire for change. Therefore, in the acquisition phase of
responses present the physical discomfort resulting from the injection as punishment for the
violent behavior. Alex manages to associate the generated response, in this case it is the discomfort.

physical, with the violence he sees and that is precisely what leads him to take an attitude
diametrically opposed to avoid punishment, this is a clear example of training
of avoidance. Then a process of generalization of responses and its body occurs.
reacts in the same way to any stimulus that may incite him to be violent.

The aversive treatment proves to be successful: it manages to condition Alex to stop being
violent. Upon his release from prison, we see the side effects on his mental health and
how all the violence that he had generated before comes back against him, unable to
to defend against even the slightest aggression. A series of events lead him to attempt suicide,
but it fails. After a long period of recovery in the hospital, Alex is once again the
the same as before and there are no traces of conditioning in him. What seems to happen is
a process of extinction of the learned response followed by another process of
spontaneous recovery of previous responses to conditioning.
Conclusion.

The film A Clockwork Orange presents itself as a harsh critique of reflection on the
orthodox conductism. We are more than just the observable, behavior is a small
part of human complexity and its conditioned modification represents a method
reductionist that tries to hide and deny the foundation of all being: the dynamic
unconscious. A quick reading of Beyond the Pleasure Principle, the central text of the
psychoanalytic theory published by Freud in 1920 gives us insights into the origin of the
violence, places it as an inherent element of the human condition, is the drive of
death that does not cease to be written through the strengthening of the life drive and us
it leads us continuously towards our destruction.
One of the main problems that aversive therapy has had to face, perhaps still
greater than the increase in the real utility of their techniques, is the 'ethical' problem that their

use raises. To what extent can an individual be treated with painful stimuli?
and unpleasant, yet respect their integrity as a human being? This is the
main source of criticism of 103 behavior modification procedures, techniques of
aversive control and that, in truth, it is the partial expression of a phenomenon that only in the
recent years have made it explicit in behavioral therapy: the problem of control of the
behavior human.
This type of aversive therapy is a technique that overrides the will of individuals.
that they are generally required to take it.
To conclude, we will say that obviously all of us as psychologists who in a
In the not so distant future, we must be concerned about the ethics of our treatments and of
ours
experimental programs, but as Mirón (1968) says, 'To deliberately attenuate the...
the effectiveness of the treatment prohibiting the use of powerful and effective tools is not
only naive and foolish, but it is truly inhumane and cruel.
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