Purpose: To demonstrate to participants just how preconditioned the human animal tends to be.

 Time Required: 5 minutes.

 Size of Group: Unlimited.

 Materials Required: Flipchart.

 The Exercise in Action: Ronald Rahn, a manager training specialist for the Lockheed Space Operations Co., secretly prints the words “red,” “rose,” and “chair” on a flipchart and covers them. He then tells participants he will ask them a series of questions and they should shout their answers. He says, “Give me the name of a color, give me a name of a flower, and give me a name of a piece of furniture,” and writes the response he most commonly hears on the flipchart.

When the hidden list is compared with the list made in class, he almost always has a complete match. Rahn uses this exercise as a springboard into a discussion of how conditioned people tend to be, and the importance of carefully examining our programming so that we are aware of choices we can make to consciously build new reactions and choices if needed.

The results are similar when he varies the exercise by giving each person an index card and asking them to quickly jot down the name of a color, flower, and piece of furniture. He then asks them to compare their answers in groups of five or six and discuss reasons for any similarities and differences.