Primal Conditioned Response

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

I first read this one from the book by Marc MacYoung on defense and then I read, reading, a book on the psych of compliance where I read a phrase that coins ‘tapes’ and ‘standard sequence of behaviors’. What does this mean to me so I let my meandering mind go wild and would come to relate primal conditioned responses to procedural memory to encoding to finally creating taped standard primal conditioned behaviors and responses for humans. Notice, I didn’t say self-defense or self-fense or any other form of martial fense disciplines. 

I kind of liked that some stimuli would click a trigger that would activate the tap, click whirrrrr, and out would come those standard primal conditioned responses in an appropriate manner in an appropriate situation and with appropriate procedural memory driven responses. 

The quote or meme of inspiration: “Click and the appropriate tape gets activated; whirr and out rolls the standard sequence of behaviors.” - Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Fixed Action Patterns: They can involve intricate sequences of behavior, such as fense methodologies with types of force, etc. A fundamental characteristic of these patterns is that the behaviors that compose them occur in virtually the same fashion and in the same order every time. When a situation calls for fence, the appropriate self-fense tape gets played; fighting/combatives, the fighting/combative tape gets played. Click and the appropriate tape gets activated; whirr and out rolls the standard sequence of behaviors, i.e. those primal conditioned standard sequence of behaviors from procedural memories that comprise the encoded ‘tapes’ and then goals and tactics and strategies get done. - Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Human automatic behavior patterns: Consists of mechanistic, unthinking manner in which they occur. These patterns make us vulnerable to anyone who does know how they work.  - Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

We do strive for a mechanistic instinctual-like manner (primal conditioned encoded taped response) in which stimuli triggers the tape and ‘click and whirr’ we act accordingly. What I expand on is that although most martial disciplines focus heavily on the mechanistic there actually exists both mechanistic and psychological/philosophical instinct-like triggers and tapes that implement the more cerebral actions that feed both avoidance and deescalation through this ‘psychology of compliance’. Compliance as a means to provide choices that influence others to act in a certain way such as avoidance toward deescalation.

“The ability to manipulate without the appearance of manipulation.“ - Robert B. Cialdini, PhD, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. 

To get others to trigger other more beneficial tapes the take over form emotionally charged egoistic conflict/violence oriented methods to get what one wants. Since both sides often want something and that something is often at odds with what the other wants you find the challenge in getting the other to shift gears. One example I read some where is when a social conflict begins one can choose to provide the other some greater result then when that isn’t perceived acceptable then you give the other a way ‘out’ that is appropriate to their needs so that they keep face and are provided the choice in lieu of having one force upon them. Not exact but you get the meaning and if you don’t just comment and I will try to expand on this. 

We need to use our ‘weapons of influence’ on others especially in conflicts with violence because often it is the only way to trigger a tape that will over ride a more ‘dangerous’ tape so that both parties have a way to save face while not enjoying the grave injuries and possible death that violence can bring to the table. Click, whirrr - inappropriate social or asocial violence is present then ‘click -n- whirr’ you provide an appropriate trigger that starts another more appropriate tape and ‘whalla’ violence is avoided, both parties have a face saving out and both take it while saving face. (truth be told, to really grasp this concept and train for it you need to take it to the dojo floor and analyze it into a synthesized tape that you can encode through a more realistic training program, etc.)

Take a look at Dr. Cialdini book titled, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.” https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-Cialdini/dp/006124189X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1471359879&sr=8-1&keywords=Influence%3A+The+Psychology+of+Persuasion

Another take away I found of personal interest to me is that this speaks toward human patterns, i.e., those tapes are patterns and rhythms and cadences that are recorded tapes we either store or encode into procedural memory of primal conditioned responses. What is the difference, one is stored and retrieved in a normal way, the other is stored and triggered under the hood, so to speak, where our conscious human brain is bypassed and our more instinct oriented lizard like brain pulls the tapes faster, triggers them quickly and implements them in an appropriate manner. All you have to do is figure out how to record the tapes, encode them in the appropriate brain slot and then how to trigger them according to need and the situation - easy pleasy!

Yet another take away for me, this simply helps to understand that there are so many ways to look at and figure out things that analysis and synthesis makes a lot more sense in learning, understanding and applying things to things. To simply learn one way, assume it is good not just for the one thing but all things and then become stagnant in that belief seems … limiting so in this effort it appears that taking different perspectives, creating different theories and ideas even if they are simply saying the same thing but differently creates a more open and influential mind-set and mind-state. Understanding seems to trump a lot because without understanding how do you make it work? 

Bibliography (Click the link)

“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)