Learning From Pigeons

“Experience is not what happens to you. Experience is what you DO with what happens to you”

Insanity is described by one wise guy as “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” if somebody does not like the music coming from one radio station all they need to do is change the channel. Complaining about the bad songs will not make the music disappear. If you want to get rid of the cold in your room, complaining about the cold will not make the cold to go away. Just turn on the heater and the warmth will replace the cold. Many people do not know how to react to problems and they think worrying or complaining about how bad things are, is equivalent to doing something about the problem. If you want to get rid of negative thoughts, don’t complain about the negative thoughts, just start thinking about something positive and keep doing it repeatedly until it forms into your habit. Let’s learn some lessons from the following story on an experiment with pigeons as told by Michael Josephson  

During an experiment, pigeons were put in cages with one green and one red button.  In one cage, if the birds pecked the green button they would get food every time.  In the other, the green button yielded food erratically and the pigeons had to persist to get enough food.  In both cases, pecking the red button did nothing.  Both sets of birds thrived, learning what they had to do to survive and to ignore the red button that yielded no food.  But when the birds that were used to getting a reward every time were put in the cage that fed them only occasionally, they failed to adapt; they hit their heads against the cage and pecked wildly at everything in sight.

There are two worthwhile lessons from this study.  First, the pigeons quickly learned from experience to avoid the red button because it was unproductive.  There are lots of people who would lead smoother and happier lives if they just stopped pushing red buttons that never give them what they want.

Second, even birds who have it too easy get spoiled and develop an entitlement mentality that prevents them from adapting to situations where they can solve their problems if they just work harder.  Some people are like that too.  They don’t deal well with new circumstances especially those that require persistence.

Part of being responsible is learning from experience to appreciate the benefits of tenacity and the wisdom of avoiding useless, harmful and self-defeating patterns of behavior.