Many scientists believe that people are animals, (I do believe that many scientists' grandparents were monkeys) and if one animal's behaviour can be altered, so can another. The scientist under discussion here is of course one Mr Pavlov, who is famous for his dogs. Every time I think of Pavlov and his dogs, I cannot help but conjure up a scene of slavering, slobbery, slimy dogs.
Mr Pavlov experimented with the idea that a primary stimulus could invoke a secondary response - or something like that. His dogs would be fed just after he rang a bell. After a while, he noted that simply ringing the bell would cause the dogs to salivate, expectant of a meal. The knowledge of this led to the modern discipline of Behavioural Sciences, that is, how can human behaviour be altered, modified or otherwise be tampered with.
One of the more interesting and perhaps rewarding spin-offs of this kind of study is "What Makes People Buy". The advertising industry leans very heavily on the study of human behaviour, and the stimuli needed to invoke the required response. To put this more simply, what do I do to make you spend your money on my wares?
A few years ago, at the dawn of the age of the digital camera, I watched a television program in which the latest in digital photography was discussed. The journalist doing the interview asked the chairman of whichever company it was, I think Panasonic, if he thought that people would really prefer digital cameras over normal film cameras, since the quality of the digital camera was so poor. The executive's reply was, "Two things will happen. Firstly, people will get used to poor quality, and then, in time, this technology will improve to the point where it is competitive with the better technology.
I thought this was a profound answer. It is true, people do get used to poor quality. And business people know this, and exploit it to the edge, "pushing the envelope" all the time. They are some "old sayings" we need to consider. One is, "there is nothing that cannot be made cheaper for a little less money", and the other is, "Quality costs". Since most people believe that the general public should always be victims of a price war, suppliers always seem to be on the lookout for "the same thing made a little cheaper". Not to charge the buyer less, but to make a little more profit.
I bought a bicycle for a young man last year. A month later he brought it back to me. The frame was broken. I always believed in Raleigh cycles, the name already existed when I was young, and that was many years ago. Here I was, looking at a marque that did me proud when I was young, and for the first time in my life I saw a broken frame. Broken forks I've seen, broken pedals often. I have had to replace countless ball bearings that were chewed up by sand getting in where it should not be. But never have I seen a broken frame and that on a brand new bicycle. I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a slobbering dog.