Conditioning and your life

Patterns in your life, getting triggered by something, always doing things the same way, these are all examples of conditioning in your life. But what exactly is conditioning? And can you condition yourself to do things differently in your life anyway? Or can you help people use conditioning to improve their lives?

Get answers in this blog.

In conditioning, a distinction is often made between classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning often uses Pavlov to explain what it is. Classical conditioning is about how animals (and humans) learn[1]. For example, in Pavlov's case, a dog learned that if a bell rang that it would get meat. This caused the dog to start drooling and at some point the dog started drooling from just the bell, even if the meat was not there.

Conditioning also takes place in your daily life. Marketers make grateful use of this. For example, famous people who you can link to certain nice things are used in advertisements because that person makes you happy (or because lots of people become happy with that person).

This is why athletes recommend athletic shoes, for example. Because you subconsciously linked that person to sports and especially good sports performance.

Even the music played in the supermarket is used in the hope that it triggers something in you (at least a good mood). As a result, you might even stay in the store longer and thus get more signals to buy something.

Operant conditioning

In operant conditioning, you repeat a certain action more and more often because the consequence appeals to you. Or rather the action you perform has a certain consequence. If this consequence is positive, you repeat the behavior more and more often[2].

This is one reason why addictions can develop. You take a substance, and it makes you feel so good that you end up taking it more and more often.

Operant conditioning is also the reason why it is sometimes difficult to stand up for yourself, as this can lead to discussions that initially make you feel uncomfortable.

Fortunately, you can also use operant conditioning for good. This is why, for example, it’s important to celebrate successes —so that you’ll repeat the behavior that led to that success and achieve even more success.

Or if you do enter that discussion and are successful in standing up for yourself, it gives you a sense of relief that will actually allow you to enter that discussion again in the future.

You can also see that time plays a role in operant conditioning. It is sometimes said that people who are good at delaying or waiting longer for a good outcome have more successful lives.

For example, how quickly do you want to achieve this good feeling? Wanting this fast can lead to addictions and not standing up for yourself. No discussion ultimately feels better than discussion.

But can you handle waiting a while for your success? To go through "the pain" first, as some endurance athletes say? Then this is a formula for success in your life.

Evaluative conditioning

Evaluative conditioning is actually about the opinion you get from a particular association. This fits very much with classical conditioning. For example, you find people with certain external characteristics more attractive because people with those characteristics are portrayed as attractive in movies, advertisements or books (source 1).

So can other issues and other opinions.

You are also often unaware of why you feel something about someone. Original conditioning is not always something you are aware of.

What is annoying is that a formed opinion is often difficult to change. In the study, for example, a neutral person Paul brings up is labeled "not nice" by membership in a certain negative group. That opinion persists even though he then comes out on his own once (source 1).

However, opinions can be changed if Paul then goes somewhere with someone who belongs to a group that is actually labeled as very nice. So the context in which you see someone must be significantly different to break the evaluative conditioning.

Indirect associations can also provide some evaluation. For example, if you see a neutral face and a face you don't like and then you see another neutral face, that neutral face may be evaluated negatively. Despite not being part of the context of the negative face (source 1).

This is why, for example, it’s best not to go anywhere in a bad mood—otherwise, you might start associating those new people with that bad mood, and that won’t help you in the long run.

It's better to go to people you already know and know will put you in a good mood.

Fortunately, this contagious indirect effect also works with positive associations. So if you're in a good mood, you'll put new people you meet in a better light.

So many opinions are not even based on actual situations, but are created by associations with similar situations, stories other people tell about something or certain people and on just certain pre-associations.

So all those associations, those cause your advertisers to use popular celebrities to promote a product that doesn't even have to have anything to do with them, so the viewer forms a positive opinion about it (source 1).

Even people who have the same letters in their name as in your first or last name can be liked more just because of those letters (source 1).

How you see yourself also shapes how you see others. Depression can therefore have far-reaching consequences, because it can lead you to view the people around you more negatively than you would if you were feeling well (source 1).

Changing your conditioning

As can be seen, there are quite a few ways in which conditioning affects your life. Your behavior and on what you think about something.

Fortunately, if your behaviors and opinions are not helping you move forward in your life, there is something you can do to change those conditionings. That's where hypnosis can help you.

What’s really interesting is that hypnosis influences your subconscious and can help you form new associations. This is exactly what’s important in conditioning, and it can be carried out both openly and more subtly by a hypnotherapist. This has its pros and cons[3].

Do you often have things in your life that come back to you? That you react in a certain way? Or that you avoid a difficult situation instead of going through it so you can feel better afterwards?

This may be something that has been bothering you for a long time in your life, but is really not helping you move forward.

In such a case, regression can help.

If something makes you feel a certain way, regression allows you to go back to the first moment when you got a certain association, a certain negative feeling about a certain event.

The hypnotherapist then helps you change this moment. As mentioned, the context in which something happens can provide a certain new association that allows you to change your evaluation.

With regression, you actually change the context of your memory. The way you view a particular situation and that then changes the way you feel about it.

This can help you, for example, resist the urge to eat candy, stand up for yourself, or do something you’re not yet able to do but actually want to do.

The way a hypnotherapist helps you change the context depends on the memory. Often this is a memory from your childhood, because that is the time in your life where you get certain conditioning on anything and everything, and it remains fixed in your subconscious.

Very inconvenient, because as a child you do not understand the world as well as when you are an adult.

Sometimes just empathizing with other people who were there at the time is enough, and in other cases you can have a conversation with your inner child.

This is often a good way to change your conditioning quickly because you are changing the context.

In addition, affirmations can also help you condition your day, for example. This is then also known as priming.

For example, you can use it to boost your confidence for the day or make certain intentions clearer to yourself.

You can then use self-hypnosis to repeat certain suggestions such as:

"I can do anything."

"I'm good enough."

"I am a smart worker."

"I am brave."

These are just examples. Depending on the problems you want to overcome, a hypnotherapist may give you other suggestions for conditioning.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then come to a free online master class.

Or sign up for one of our seminars or training courses. You can take the courses in a classroom setting or live online.

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