A reflection on labeling and conditioning.

"SMART," "Perfectionist," "Stupid," "Lazy," "Failure," "Procrastinator." These are labels I hear everyday and I could connect them to people I know. Recently, I've come to understand the importance of labels--they dictate not only how we see ourselves, but also how we see others.

I'm a student currently taking a course called Conflict Resolution. As a class assignment, we read an article from ETC: a Review of General Semantics every week and then e-mailed a reflection to our teacher. I took a special interest in the article "But Names Can Also Hurt Them" by Helen Koty Globus. (p.374-378) The author suggests that labeling people is inevitable. In fact, labeling anything is inevitable as we use adjectives to describe objects, even people. After reading this article, I thought about what labeling can do to people.

My class has also been studying B.F. Skinner and his idea of conditioning. There are three methods of conditioning and one includes the environment. Our environment conditions us to think and act in particular ways. According to this theory, when we are brought into this world we are blank slates with nothing written on us. When taken into an environment, we are conditioned by the surrounding outside forces. We do not control ourselves or how we think because we are constantly reacting to the world. For example, many teenagers who attend private schools experience a change in their study habits. They are put into a crowd of students with school as the main priority and they soon adapt to that habit as well. If a student from the Midwest attends a school on the east coast, he or she may adapt accents and clothing styles to match the new environment. It all depends on the environment and the way it impacts them. (Stevenson & Haberman, 189-205) The other two methods of conditioning include two types of reinforcement: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement involves giving a person what he wants when he does what you want. For instance, if a teacher wants students to be on time for class, she may reward the timely students with cookies, and the tardy students with nothing. This will eventually condition the students to come to class on time because they will receive something they want. Negative reinforcement involves taking something away from the person. For example, some schools use negative reinforcement with evening supervised study hall. If a student receives good grades, she is excused from study hall as a reward. Both positive and negative reinforcement are effective in B.F. Skinner's conditioning.

In my opinion, conditioning and labeling go hand in hand. Throughout our lives we are labeled, from the day we are born until the day we die. We are conditioned to fulfill the labels we receive. I can look at my life and see how labeling has affected me. My parents have taught me to be a perfectionist. (I guess they used the label "good girl.") I try to be the best at everything I do. For example, I scored in the high twenties on the ACT which is a few points higher than the national average. Because I have been conditioned to be a perfectionist, the high twenties is a horrible score to me. I have been labeled and pushed all my life to be the best at everything. If I am not, then I see myself as simply a failure. So I have retaken the ACTs many times to score higher and I will continue until I reach a perfect score.

Students are not only conditioned in academics but also on the athletic field. I play center forward on Vermont Academy's soccer team and had quite a few goals this season. My coaches labeled me as the "goal scorer" and I soon adapted to that name. Whenever I scored a goal I felt that I had done my job correctly and put a smile on my face. However there was a downside to this. If I didn't score a goal in a game, I felt that I had let down my entire team. I was a failure at soccer all because I was labeled the "goal scorer" and I didn't live up to this label.

Globus point out that we label people and these labels become their qualities. (Globus 376) I never realized this, but it makes sense to me. Whenever I am asked by a college to describe myself in five words, I always answer using the labels that others use to label me. My mother labels me a perfectionist, my father labels me intelligent, my roommate labels me hilarious, etc. I take these labels and I become them. I can't help it; it is how I've been conditioned. These key incidents and positive conditioning from other people have made me a confident character.

Labeling can affect people in a negative way as well. Rarely, do people think calling someone stupid or a failure can be hurtful; after all, "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Forget that saying--it is a lie. Conditioning through labeling can hurt people.

Know a family that has a "problem" child? How might this have happened? Perhaps as report cards and teacher conferences do not meet the parents' standards, the label "failure" gets tattooed on the child's forehead. He carries this label and has not tried to remove it. He fails at whatever he attempts to do well and struggles to pass classes at school. He has a hard time meeting the standards that his parents and his teachers have set for him

After a few run-ins with the local police, the child soon receives his second label, the "bad egg" of the family. He causes trouble, whether it is coming home after curfew or sneaking out at three or four in the morning. His parents attempt to discipline him by removing the television from his room, taking away his cell phone, grounding him, and so on, but he always finds a way to get in more trouble. These key events and conditioning have created the troubled teenager, now labeled the "problem" child.

We obviously cannot help labeling people. Everyday we use adjectives to categorize people and objects. We can be careful when choosing what labels we use because it obviously has a bigger impact than we think. Key events and conditioning creates who we are and how we act. We make each other.

  The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to
notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is
little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes
our thoughts and deeds
--Daniel Goleman, psychologist and journalist (1946-)

MILLICENT SHEK *

* Millicent Shek is a senior at Vermont Academy. She was born and raised in Saginaw, Michigan. Millicent plans to attend college next fall and pursue a career in law.