behaviour modification

[David Jamieson]

Start with a cage containing five monkeys.

Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with cold water.

After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him.

After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked.

Most of the monkeys that are beating him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.

After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana.

interesting observation.

[taai gihk yahn]

Basically a condensed version of the role of religion in the history of human society...

Although personally I like it when someone sprays cold water on my monkey...

[sanjuro_ronin]

Basically a condensed version of the role of religion in the history of human society...

Although personally I like it when someone sprays cold water on my monkey...

Nope, an example of how easily "people" can lead other "people" astray with the threat of violence.

[kfson]

It sounds like the U.S. Democratic Party, oddly enough.

[Pork Chop]

It sounds like the U.S. Democratic Party, oddly enough.

funny, i thought the same about fox news-watching conservatives.

[SanHeChuan]

It there a link for this observation? I’m assuming it is from an actual study and not just somebody theorizing. As the latter would have much less value.

The violence isn't a necessary component of conformity. The monkeys do not attack out of fear of retributive violence for not participating in the attack, as there was no example of this happing. The monkeys continued to attack because they wanted to be part of the group, as opposed to an outsider. It is likely the effect of normative social influence.

Solomon Asch did an experiment where a group was asked to answer an obvious question, but everyone in the group but one was a plant who intentionally all gave the same wrong answer. The lone person would (usually) eventually fall in line with the group to give the same wrong answer as everyone else, even though they KNEW the answer was wrong. Even when they did not cave into social pressure to answer wrong, they became less and less vocal in their answers and would shrink in posture under the “weight” of social pressure.

If we wanted to take on a Martial arts perspective for this, we’d look at tradition.
How many schools repeat certain behaviors without knowing why they are doing it other than because it is tradition? And they will often make up a new reason for carrying on the tradition.

Religion is influenced by this effect as are the wide range of human group interactions. Any religion if not widely accepted would seem ridiculous, which is to say that Christianities popularity as an accepted faith is a reason people are willing to buy into it in the first place.