Behavior Modification

At bottom, the stimulus-response model of behavior is a dissatisfaction-satisfaction circuit. That is, what initially stimulates a response is something problematic, and the response is a means to resolving the problem. For example, in an infant, hunger is a stimulus to which a response of crying leads to feeding. Behavioral patterns can thus be taught or modified via punishment and reward techniques. But such an educational technique is suited to children. Adolescents begin to self-modify their behavior rebelliously, with responses contrary to what they have been taught. In an adult, a new dimension must emerge if one is to break one's conditioning. First, one must become aware of one's behavioral patterns, and second, one must constrain oneself from falling into them. An example of how to achieve such self-constraint is offered in one of the greatly under-appreciated facets of Kant's 'Categorical Imperative'. His formula refers to 'maxims', a 'maxim' being an articulation of a behavioral pattern one is considering acting upon. Usually going unnoticed in studies of Kant is that the very awareness of one's habitual responses is itself the beginning of detaching from them, to be followed by active constraint, e. g. Kant's 'universalization' procedure. So, self-constraint is a necessary condition of self-modification, and for Stoicism, it seems to be regarded as a sufficient one as well. However, someone who is seeking to quit smoking often needs to not only not grab cigarette, but to furthermore put on a nicotine patch and chew some gum. In other words, mere suppression of a habit does not suffice to rid one of the dissatisfaction that first generates it. As Nietzsche and Freud have famously argued, unless constructively redirected, that dissatisfaction can breed responses that are much more harmful than that which has been suppressed. Thus, adult behavior self-modification must both understandingly constrain the original pattern, and vary it.