Sunday, September 19, 2010

Social Learning

Social learning, while a sometimes applicable concept, does not always apply to every individual.

The truth is that social learning is merely the result of predisposed consumers being fed what they subconsciously crave the most. A person who has a strong reaction to something he ingests through the media was already going to have the same reaction to the most dominant thing in his domain. Likewise, a person who is not predisposed mentally to being strongly swayed by TV won't run out and kill someone as soon as he sees Die Hard. People take what they want from the media.

One of the most striking examples was Charles Manson and his "family." He built a cult following and ordered the killing of numerous people because of what he believed to be a message of revolt and uprising in the Beatles song "Helter Skelter." Yet, this group was the only that did so. There were no other vicious murders or uprisings due to this song. The man was psychologically predisposed to find a guiding voice of massacre in whatever media he could get his hands on.

The message does not make you. You take the message, twist it, and eventually spit it back out to support whatever you are already thinking, if you even are paying attention.

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