A few days ago I was studying for my psych midterm, and I got so interested in the topic of human and animal learning that I decided to do a deeper research online about the topic. Coincidentally, I found out something extremely interesting that can explain why we have certain core beliefs and an unwillingness of challenging them. In 1967, a researcher called G.R. Stephenson made an experiment with a cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, a banana was hung a on a string with a set of stairs placed under it. Whenever one of the monkeys started to climb towards the banana, the researcher would spray all of the other monkeys with ice cold water. Eventually, all of the other monkeys would physically prevent any monkey from climbing the stairs. Furthermore, the researcher shut off the cold water, removed one monkey from the cage and replaced it with a new one. As soon as the new monkey started to climb the stairs, all of the other monkeys attacked him. After another attempt and another attack, the monkey realized that if he tried to climb the stairs, he would be spanked. Next they removed another of the original five monkeys and replaced it with a new one. The new monkey went to the stairs and was attacked by the other 4 monkeys, including the previous newcomer. Moreover, the 5 original monkeys were replaced by new ones. Whenever the newest monkey tried to climb the stairs, he was attacked. After replacing all the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys had ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no monkey ever dared to approach the stairs again and try for the banana. Don’t you wonder why? Because as far as they know thats the way things are. To a certain extent, doesnt that reflect the way we are taught certain moral values, prejudices, stereotypes and other terrible core beliefs and why some people are never able to open their minds? Think about it! By the way, happy Halloween :)
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 20:58:40 +0000
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