It's Coming for You...
A dad loved to take his car to the car wash. The dad loved to take his daughters to the car wash and watch the whole cleaning process. One daughter was especially intrigued by an employee cleaning the car's rubber matts. The sun was out and shining brightly over a pleasant Sunday afternoon. As the girl watched from a her chair, she leaned forward. Wham! The girl started wailing for her dad. The result? A scraped elbow, a bump on the head, and a childhood trauma.
The girl only went back to the car wash place three times over the next several years. Even then, she refused to sit down outside and watch the men clean the different cars. The other customers sat peacefully in their patio chairs as they waited for the employees to clean their car. Yet this girl knew what caused her accident. She refused to sit in a patio chair and only clung to her father. The lawn chair that tipped would never look the same. Sitting in another one could do more damage.
One traumatic event for the young child stimulated a chain of extensive cautioned actions. Years later, the girl learned she fell because the lawn chair was perched on the edge of the parking lot curb (CS). With age as a factor, the use of classical conditioning taught her how to fear lawn chairs. An event that lasted only seconds created fear (CR). Reverse conditioning and the child's maturity helped her get over her fear of sitting in plastic patio chairs.
Wowza, that's an impressively interesting thought. To think that falling out of a chair can scar someone for such a time, even though it was merely an accident. Interesting how it always seem to occur in early youth.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange that this physical occurrence had such a lasting effect, I know that experiences that have effected me the most have been that of an event surrounding emotional trauma. I wonder which is more lasting physical trauma, or emotional.
ReplyDeleteAnna
ReplyDeleteI can connect this story with the irrational desire of high school students to lean on the edge of chairs and/or not keep four on the floor. I am surprised that more people do not develop fears like that of the girl in your story.
Anna, your story shows how far fetched classical conditioning can be. There is not a designed plan for how it works. Any person can be classically conditioned in multiple ways. There are multiple confiding variables that affect which neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.
ReplyDelete