Psychology
Why are we scared of Tarot or How Tarot relates to Classical Conditioning?
An unusual way to look at things
Although this article has a name tarot in the title, it is not really about tarot. Yes, it uses tarot as a perspective, but it is actually about you.
Tarot has gotten stigma and bad name associated with it through the centuries. On the other hand, classical conditioning has become increasingly popular over the years. What could tarot and classical conditioning have in common? Read further, and I answer that question later.
Now let’s start, and I promise it will all make sense in the end. Let’s start by asking a question.
What is the first association that comes to your mind when you think of Tarot reader?
I guess that if you are not familiar with Tarot, then the first thing that comes to your mind might be an image of some older gipsy lady wanting to predict your future. That is the stereotypical image of the tarot reader that many people seem to have an association with. Of course, you are right; there always can be exceptions. There still could be people whose association is different, and that it ok. They might have a different experience with it and thus a different association.
Association is the first thing that comes to your mind.
Now let’s take it a little bit further. We have established that seems like a lot of people have the same image in mind when they think about the tarot reader as a personality. Now let’s dig a bit deeper and ask another question.
What is the first association that comes to your mind when you think about the tarot reading itself?
When searching an answer to this question in my memory bank, I get two different associations. One, where the tarot reader pulls some card and no matter what the card really means, would tell something that the client wants to hear. This association is questioning the honesty and personal characteristics of the tarot reader as a personality. In every business, some people are in there for quick cash, and their main focus is money. But let’s be honest, it is not only in tarot but everywhere.
The other association would be where the tarot reader pulls some card that people are associating with something bad and are generally scared when seeing them. Like Tower where buildings are falling, and everything is being destructed. Or, Death card. And many times, people might genuinely feel scared.
Why is that? Why do we have these associations in the first place?
In a way, it seems like the very first association we have about something that reflects some stereotypes we all have as a society. It looks like only the people who have taken the time and looked into something, really know what that something is about. It seems like many people can have very similar associations about something.
Now we will consider what some theories in psychology have suggested how these associations in our mind are learned and built over time.
You might be thinking, interesting, but where do these associations come from?
Association is nothing more than conditioning. And conditioning is the process of learning associations. There are two different fields of conditioning in psychology, and both are associated with the learning theories.
The first is classical conditioning, that is also called Pavlovian conditioning. There is another type of conditioning, and that is operant conditioning which is also called instrumental conditioning. Both are very connected and form the basis of Reinforcement Learning field.
Pavlovian or classical conditioning is essentially learning associations themselves. Operant or instrumental conditioning is learning through reinforcement. Imagine that every time you do something, you receive feedback. If feedback is positive, then you are learning that what you are doing works, and you might tend to repeat that behaviour. However, if you receive feedback that is not desirable, you are then learning to do this action less and less.
Now, let’s consider what is classical conditioning.
What is Classical (Pavlovian) conditioning?
In simple words is a process of learning, through which something that was initially neutral, becomes associated with something and as a consequence of this association elicits some specific behaviour.
To further explain it, I will use an experiment that is very popular in psychology, called the Little Albert experiment.
Before I elaborate further, I wanted to mention that this experiment was conducted back in 1920ties. Back in those days, the research ethics were not so developed yet, so then, it was legal. You would not be able to repeat this experiment for ethical reasons as it could actually harm a baby psychologically.
Baseline: The main hero of the experiment was Albert, a 2 years old baby, also known as the little Albert. The base condition was that initially, the baby was not scared of rats, fur, or any animals.
Conditioning process: The experimenters rang a gong in front of the Albert every time he showed any interest and was trying to play with the rat that was in front of him. They repeated this process 4 times.
Learning evaluation: Researchers were presenting all the animals and objects that they showed to him at the beginning of the experiment and, of course, observed his reaction. This time Albert was visibly scared and did not like the rat or any other animal that had fur. The fear he had before was transferred to other objects that looked similar.
To summarise, Albert learned to associate the rat with the gong sound that he did not like. So whenever he saw a rat, he started crying. But not only that, but this fear was also transferred to similar objects.
Think about it. Researchers deliberately taught the little Albert to be scared of rats. Not only that, he was scared of things that are similar. In fact, even from white fur. Now, think about the implications it has to your own life.
Suppose you are interested in finding out more about this experiment more. In that case, you will find the youtube video to the experiment here:
The Little Albert Experiment by Watson and Rayner (1920), link to the Youtube video:
How does tarot relate to classical conditioning or why you might be scared of tarot?
Tarot has a lousy name and stigma associated with it through the centuries. And we looked at the classical conditioning, which is one of the learning theories about how we learn associations. The way how classical conditioning relates to tarot is that through social media, movies, and everything we have experienced, we have learned the associations of what tarot is for us. If you do not look into something and really understand it, then it is very likely that the way you think about it comes from what you have heard about it. It also might come from the movies you have seen. Your social media feeds etc. All this forms your opinion about something. But are these stereotypes the truth? Of course not. There may be some truth in stereotypes as well, but they have one huge disadvantage. If you associate something with some stereotype that is not seen by society in general as desirable, then it has consequences. Many people generally neglect that thing.
Is there a more helpful way to look at tarot?
Although the stereotypical way to look at things is perfectly valid, however, I would like to argue that it might not be helpful at all to look through that lens. Some important things could get lost when looking through stereotype lense. I did change my perspective toward tarot myself. Now I look at it as a self-development tool and even a tool that helps me make decisions. Each of the cards represents some specific energy, like in a fairytale, you would have different people with different characteristics and different behaviours. Some are very pleasant and joyful to be around. Some are more serious, and some are teaching you something. Well, each of these people, events that they experience and lessons they are learning through those experiences can actually be connected to a tarot card. All the cards relate to the 5 elements and represent different types of maturity.
Conclusion
I want to invite you to question your associations, and ask yourself a question where is this coming from? How did I learned and formed my opinion about something? Is this way that I am currently using to look at something helpful? Or am I limiting it’s potential?
Through the process of classical conditioning, we learn and form our opinions. Sometimes those opinions can be debilitating, and just not helpful, like in the case of tarot. We have been conditioned to think a certain way about it. It is time to start questioning if the way we think is helpful. This is the message I would like to leave you with. Thanks for taking the time to read!
