Desist from the habit of not thinking

George Chingarande | Monday September 15, 2014 13:18

In one seminal experiment in psychology four monkeys were placed in a roomy cage that had a tall pole in the centre.  Suspended from the top of that pole was a bunch of bananas. To monkeys bananas are an irresistible delicacy. The monkeys immediately started scampering up the pole towards the bananas.  Just as the leading monkey was about to grab a banana, it was doused with a jet of very cold water and it immediately fell to the ground.

This treatment was meted out to every monkey in turn. This went on for days. Initially the monkeys did not give up the idea of reaching their goal of eating the bananas. However, after a while the monkeys modified their behaviour. Whenever, a monkey tried to scale the pole and get to the bananas the other monkeys would grab it and pull it down. At this point the researchers did two things.

First, they replaced the first monkey with a new monkey that had no prior exposure to the cold jet of water. Second, they removed the water dousing mechanism.  This new monkey was attracted to the bananas and attempted to go up the pole, but when the other three monkeys noticed this they all grabbed him and pulled him down. The subliminal message communicated to the new monkey was “You are a Johnnie-come –lately, you do not know how things are done in here. We the veterans know better.”  After making several attempts and being pulled down by his colleagues, the new entrant also abandoned the idea of climbing up the pole.

The researchers went on to replace all the monkeys one by one.  To their amazement each time a new entrant to the cage tried to climb the pole he was pulled down by his peers. 

In time the cage was filled with monkeys that had never been doused with the water.  However, none of them attempted to climb and none of them knew why. Amazing, isn’t it? The ostrich is equally amazing. Faced with any challenge especially of a physical nature, it immediately thrusts its head in the sand.

By burying its head in the sand the ostrich protects its head but leaves the bulk of its huge body exposed to the same peril. This too is comedic. Unfortunately both monkeys and ostriches exhibit tendencies that are common among people. We will proceed and explore these.

The first mistake made in the monkey experiment which is very prevalent among people especially leaders is a failure to respond appropriately to changing circumstances. The habit of pulling down a fellow monkey that tried to scale the pole began as a reasonable self preservation strategy. It was very rational for as long as the threat of being doused with water was real. However, after a while it became both instinctual and habitual.

The monkeys like humans became creatures of habit. However, when the circumstances changed the habit actually became a self limiting mechanism. In the absence of the jet of water no one and nothing was preventing the monkeys form reaching the bananas except the monkeys themselves. When the new monkeys came into the cage with their zeal of newness they tried to scale the pole.

But as we know, they were prevented from doing so by the veteran monkeys. In time the new monkeys inherited a self limiting belief and behaviour, and assimilated it without questioning its logic. If this experiment had been continued ad infinitum, a new tribe of monkeys that do not scale poles would have been created.

It is said that experience is the best teacher but we would like to caution you and say be careful of what lessons you learn from your experiences. To glean the right lessons from your experiences you need to ask the right questions. Two very important questions in life are why and how. But of these “why” is infinitely more important than “how”, because more often than not the people that know why will lead the people that know how.

If the monkeys had asked themselves why and how, they would have traced their predicament to the source of the jet of water. And once that source of water had been removed they would probably have behaved differently. Unfortunately the monkeys concluded that climbing up the pole will always lead to a dousing and failed to notice the changing circumstances. They appropriated the wrong lesson from their experience.

This is a common mistake made by people who have had their fingers burnt or have gone through some traumatic experiences and losses. Your failures in life, in whatever field of endeavour, should never make you so cautious that you neglect to make the maximum out of the opportunities around you.

Failure should never teach you to be less ambitious and less adventurous. The older monkeys, the so called veterans in life who have been through it all, and seen it all can sometimes be a hindrance to the development of young people. The problem of youth is youthful zeal, but the problem of so called maturity is prejudice; they have the uncanny habit of bringing preconceived ideas to the table.

What do the monkeys in the experiment, the ostrich that buries its head in the sand and most people have in common? It is the tendency to retract and disengage from logical thinking. Our ability to think is our greatest asset or to put it different our most enduring miracle.

However, temptations for us to avoid thinking exist in abundance but this should never invalidate the fact that thinking is our most basic means of survival. So we must think, teach ourselves to think and teach others to think because think we must. The problems of our day require a much higher level of thinking than the level where we were at when we created them.