Politicians and rats (but I repeat myself)
F. Paul Valone, “The Anti-Radical”
Grass Roots North Carolina wins in the political arena by
applying ‘operant conditioning’ to shape politicians’ behavior
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Politicians are rats. And no, I don’t mean that metaphorically. (Well, maybe just a little.)
What I mean is that like rats in a Skinner box, politicians respond to pleasure and pain: positive reinforcement … and punishment. Anyone who claims subjects don’t respond to punishment is wrong. In any species, the most effective behavior modification relies on combining both. The application of those principles to learning, extensively researched by BF Skinner, is called “operant conditioning.”
Thanks to my (distant) background in physiological psychology, my organization, Grass Roots North Carolina, applies operant conditioning to politics. Imagine a rat in a Skinner box (or, more properly, an “operant conditioning chamber”). Down one alley, they find a lever which delivers a food pellet. Down the other lies an electrified floor grid. Unsurprisingly, they quickly learn which alley delivers pleasure, and which delivers pain…
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