Penny Bail Bonds Anger Tips
By Anthony Fiore, Ph.D.
http://www.angercoach.com
http://www.angercoachonline.com

Anger Tip # 18- Don’t Automatically React To  Life’s Bells

The famous Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1848-1836) started a series of famous experiments by putting various stimuli before hungry dogs and noting how the reacted by measuring the amount they salivated to various things.
In one such series of experiments, he began by simply putting food in front of dogs who could see the food but couldn’t get to it because of a barrier. Result? All the dogs began salivating.
In part two of the experiments, Pavlov continued by ringing a bell, and then presenting the food. He combined the bell with the food many times.  Again, the dogs salivated.
Finally, in a third part of the experiment, he rang the bell, but did not put food down. Guess what? The dogs still salivated, even though there was no food in front of them.
Why did the dogs still salivate? Because a “conditioned response” had been established between the bell and the salivation reflex.
When we hear anger stories in our anger management classes, we sometimes conclude that many times human beings basically do the same thing, but often don’t realize it. That is, they go through life with a “conditioned response” to people and events that serve as their “bells” (that is, have the ability to cause automatic, non-thinking reactions to them.)
Unlike dogs, however, human beings have much more potential to change that response to their anger triggers. That is, they can modify how they deal with the “bell ringing” in their lives.
The trick is to decide how to respond to a situation, rather than simply and automatically reacting to it, like Pavlov’s dogs. Your response does not have to be automatic and pre-determined. Unlike lower animal forms, you are much more “response-able” which means you can choose what course of action to take with a given situation.
Following is a common situation to stimulate your thinking, as you consider ways to apply this tip to your life:
Situation: Your little boy comes to you while you are busy making dinner and asks you to read him a book. Ask yourself which response you usually have ( or probably would have, if you were in the situation). Then, ask yourself which response would be better.
Response 1: “Jimmy, go away. Can’t you see Mommy’s busy?”
Response 2: “I’m, busy. Go find your Dad and ask him to read to you instead of watching television.”
Response 3:  “Why do you always have to pick EXACTLY the wrong time to ask Mommy to read to you?
Response 4:  “Of course I’ll read to you, sweetie…right after dinner and before you go to bed.”

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