Assignment- I

Sibhansh Hastey, Vikram Ahlawat

The pair discussed the meanings of the three words: Conditioning, Indoctrination, and
Addiction.
Conditioning: Conditioning, as we discussed refers to the adaptation to an external
environment. Conditioning brings the desired state of functioning. The initial reaction to the
concept was to how we, as individuals are conditioned in the society. We condition ourselves
in the society with relation to the societal norms and religious beliefs that we observe around
us all the time. The pair discussed superstitions in the society and how society accepts these
notions. The discussion in the class revolved about the state of the children and how they are
conditioned by the family in a particular environment. We further discussed how children are
conditioned by the external environment as most of the awake time of children goes outside
of the houses. The impact made by others is more than what a family can create.
Indoctrination: Indoctrination is the inculcation of a set of principles or ideology to an
individual or group of persons. The team tried to understand the concept of indoctrination
from the viewpoint of religious beliefs. One of the aspects that we discussed was whether the
idea of indoctrination is only negative as it criticises and discards the learnings not aligned
with their ideologies. The idea of indoctrination seems synonymous to persuasion. However,
we discussed that indoctrination is a result of irrational beliefs while it is not always possible
in case of persuasion. Indoctrination is a manipulative way of creating a belief that may be
unreasonable or unjustified while persuasion, on the other hand, can be defined as a way of
convincing others through sound reasoning. Mainly, if a person blindly believes or follows
something, such as so called religious people and Gods, they can be indoctrinated by those
people or by someone else by using the name of Gods. The person thus believes anything that
they are told about without thinking rationally and logically and thus many issues or even
fights can occur over this. Even religion in some sense can be termed as Indoctrination,
where people just follow the practices and believe the history or anything that they are told
about. Religion is the biggest Indoctrination currently visible on the planet.
Addiction: The word itself brings a negative proposition, and the initial reaction was to think
of drug and alcohol addiction. It is a medical condition characterised by the over dependence
on a particular thing. The over dependence on a particular thing brings negative vibes.
However, as a business leader, it seemed somehow desirable for the consumers to get
addicted to our product.

Assignment- I

Sibhansh Hastey, Vikram Ahlawat

We related the concepts of conditioning, indoctrination, and addiction as a step process in a

business sense where the outcome was product/service addiction achieved through
conditioning and indoctrination.
The second part of the activity asked us to choose a product/service and using our skills,
energy, talent and resources to make sure that someone else gets addicted to using that
particular product/service. However, the use of that product/service is to be prohibited in our
family. The group discussed of choosing a product with both positive and negative aspects.
We thought of highlighting the positive aspects to the outside world while explaining the
negative externalities associated with the product/service in our family. We thought of Maggi
as a product which would be advertised in a similar fashion as Nestle does it. The negative
aspects could be drawn by the lead component in the noodles. We also tried to relate the
concept of conditioning and indoctrination to make the family believe in inhibiting the use of
such products and services. The discussion revolved around on stopping the use of Maggi in
our families. One way was to propagate the importance of eating healthy and balanced diet in
the family right from the early childhood. The effect of external environment was not
considered in our discussion.
However, the class discussion further reflected various problems. First, it would be cutting
down on revenues. However the share of income is insignificant, but still discouraging the
use in a family would lead to negative externalities and a bad word of mouth to the external
environment which could affect in an adverse way. Secondly, it becomes difficult to exercise
control over the use of such products when the family members are living in distant places.
The constant interaction of the family members with the external environment could be very
powerful in overcoming the controlling factors of the family. Moreover, the target segment
has to be the same which adds to the complexity of the problem. All factors such as economic
condition, availability of resources have to be same for the target segment as well which
removes the advantages that could be derived from these.
Practically, even though people know the negative effects of somethings, they still use it if
they want to maybe due to society or peer pressure or just because they are addicted to it.
On similar lines, when we were asked to think about stopping our family and children from
using the product, we did think that its very difficult to do so if not impossible. Children are
exposed to external environment more than the family. Even if they are stopped to use the
product at home, we can never know if they use it outside the home. If they see everyone use

Assignment- I

Sibhansh Hastey, Vikram Ahlawat

the product, they will obviously feel out of place. Moreover, they may be ridiculed by others
for not having or using the product. Human psychology wants themselves to be a part of
society and not being excluded. In this sense, it will be extremely difficult to control the
children for not using the product all the time.