Pavlov's bell effect in Fiji

Unbelievable eh? I thought of the famous Russian Ivan P. Pavlov, behaviourist when I read this article .

In a famous study, Pavlov rang a bell each time he gave a dog some food. The dog's mouth would water when the animal smelled the food.

After Pavlov repeated the procedure many times, the dog's saliva began to flow whenever the animal heard the bell, even if no food appeared.

This experiment demonstrated that a reflex (saliva) can become associated with a totally different stimulus other than the one that first produced it (in this case, the sound of a bell instead of the smell of food)

The learning process by which a response becomes associated with a new stimulus is called conditioning. From this experiment behaviourists realized that human behaviour could also be changed by conditioning.

In fact, some believed they could produce almost any response by controlling an individual's environment.

Here in Fiji after the coup, the media started out ringing the bell and predictably Teleni and Bhaini et al would run up panting looking for "incitful" comments. Tring tring tingaling.

Then other people started ringing their bells - saying what they thought - expressing their opinions. Tring tring tingaling ... same same response now to any other opinion other than what the Military stooges think.

John Samy, head scribe of Ca Charter has proclaimed that he is and his committee will be seeking views on Ca Charter.

Really why should we bother since we know they have shown from the beginning that these people don't value our opinions anyway.

Tring tring tingaling... watch what happens .... predictable eh ?