Operant Conditioning in 1984

    In my U of I psychology class, we are currently talking about operant conditioning and its use of punishment or reinforcement. In the real world, most uses of operant conditioning in the world are to make our society a better place, thus a utopia. However, in dystopias, like 1984, the same methods can be used by the government to take complete psychological control over society. 

    The difference between punishment and reinforcement is that punishment weakens the probability of a response while reinforcement strengthens the probability of a response. Even though we naturally see the Party’s beating and torture methods as punishment to strengthen Winston’s loyalty to Big Brother, could it also be seen as reinforcement? I thought of this because these methods could be seen as weakening Winston’s rebellious thinking through positive reinforcement of torture. I guess it could go either way depending on how you think of it.

    Either way, I think that 1984 took some inspiration from psychological conditioning studies because many of the government’s punishments condition the Party members and proles efficiently using certain psychology techniques. Maybe I’m too invested in my class that it is transferring over to other classes, but I want to know what you think. How much scientific background in psychology do you think George Orwell knew before writing the book?