Can You Condition Yourself?

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A friend recently told me about a self-help tactic that has become popular in the circles I move in: the idea of applying behaviorism to yourself (sometimes called “training your inner pigeon…

A friend recently told me about a self-help tactic that has become popular in the circles I move in: the idea of applying behaviorism to yourself (sometimes called “training your inner pigeon”). The idea is you give yourself rewards when you do things you want to do more of, and your brain works its magic and reinforces the activity. When I first heard about this, my thought was “No way that is ever going to work”. I have always been under the impression that conditioning is kind of like tickling. You can’t tickle yourself. You’d be expecting it. Let’s start by distinguishing a couple of…

Can You Condition Yourself?

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