A Clockwork Orange is a film about a wild and troubled young lad Alex. Alex and his friends (droogs) get a high from inflicting harm upon others. They commit random acts of robbery and rape around London. Alex, as the ringleader, eventually gets caught and is sent to prison. It is in prison that scientists study Alex's violent behavior. Scientists believed that through special training or a program that his evil ways could be fixed. Alex was subjected to a conditioning program that would create an unpleasant physical reaction to just the thought of doing harm to another person. Skinner's theories on behaviorism are introduced in these scenes where the doctors are trying to "cure" Alex.
As part of the conditioning program, Alex is forced to watch films with his eyelids clamped open. His face is then wrapped in electrical straps and wires. He is forced to watch violent scenes and right after those scenes follow crimes that Alex committed with his gang of friends. In the rear of the theater, the doctors watch his reactions a
Classical conditioning is what made Alex feel ill whenever he watched the violent video clips. Another example of classic conditioning is when Pavlov had studied dogs that salivate when they taste food. He called the food the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation the unconditioned response. This was unconditioned because salivating was a natural response to the food. Pavlov then rang a bell before the food was presented to the dog. Eventually the dog associated the sound of a bell with food. The bell is a conditioned stimulus and the salivation the conditioned response. Alex had a similar experience to that of the dogs. The injections he received was an unconditioned stimulus and the sickness was an unconditioned response to the injections. Since the scientists made him watch "ultra-violent" videos while being injected, he began to associate what he saw with what he felt. The ultra-violence became the conditioned stimulus, and Alex's sickness without the injection became the conditioned response.
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