Robert Townsend Psychology of Learning How American Idol Uses Learning for Viewership American Idol has, since

its inception in 2002, been a ratings powerhouse and overall massive success as a television program. Idol maintains a viewership of over 20 million, hitting nearly 40 million for the finale at its peak, every single season for 10 years and counting. Its certainly worth questioning why, amongst all of the shows that get rotated in and out each year, American Idol has stayed so strong and kept such a giant and dedicated fan base. It cant be the faces of the show, as Idol has gone through multiple judge changes and the contestants are new every year. A deeper analysis of the show suggests that Idols success stems not simply from the cast, but essentially from the producers ability to teach viewers to watch the show and keep watching year after year. By employing ideas borrowed from Pavlov and Classical Conditioning, Skinners Operant Conditioning, and various other types of learning mechanisms, American Idol was able to garner and is able to hold on to a strong and passionate fan base season after season. One major type of conditioning that the performers use within each episode of the show is Sechenov and Pavlovs Classical Conditioning. One of the most obvious ways they classically condition TV audiences is through their returning from commercial music. It is very loud, unique, and obviously signals the show is coming back. These three aspects of the return music represent the three factors involved in the nature of the conditioned stimulus (CS): novelty (its uniqueness), intensity (seems to be much louder than the commercials or show), and relevance (the music goes straight in to the show every time). Even after one episode with however many commercial breaks, one will remember that noise. This return from break music can be directly contrasted to many other shows such as Saturday Night Live, which randomly plays its theme during commercial breaks. When Saturday Night Live uses a stimulus (loud return music) when

the intended conditioned stimulus (the show returns from break) is not present, it has the opposite effect of American Idol use of its theme music, seriously harming the ability for subjects to be conditioned to look at the TV when the show returns. Humans are, since childhood, naturally attracted to stimulating (but unthreatening) sounds. This is why intensity, novelty, and relevance are all so important to successful learning. Most TV shows will come back from commercial with a dialogue piece, or maybe a few measures of music, but none are as powerful as the American Idol theme. Therefore, after only staying to watch a few commercial breaks, viewers get classically conditioned to associate a loud noise (the unconditioned stimulus, or US) and the CS theme music, with something important or attention worthy occurring, creating a new conditioned response (CR) of paying attention to the television show. Classical Conditioning can also help explain why American Idol never loses a large amount of viewers from season to season, even though there is an eight-month period without any new episodes. When a human or animal acquires a CR, the learning naturally slows down and the organism stops responding as well. By having seasons only last four months long (with other factors like eliminations maintaining interest until the finale), the viewers are able to follow the normal path from peak acquisition to complete extinction of the response and removal of the stimulus. However, when American Idol returns for its next season, those who learned like the producers hope will experience spontaneous recovery and begin to exhibit the same response of watching the show again, and possibly even stronger. Obviously, this method has not been perfect, as since the peak season ratings has dropped by over a third. Nevertheless, even with the ratings dropping, they still are incredibly superior to any competition.

Not only does one get classically conditioned during an episode of American Idol, but they also experience a lot of operant conditioning throughout the season as well. The Idol producers cleverly do this by their implementation of a fan-only voting system. Clearly, with the amount of voter-based reality shows that have popped up since then, there is something working that keeps viewers coming back and wanting more. Voting-based systems are completely reliant on the audience, and the audience is given the freedom to make their own choices, an important tenet of Operant Conditioning. Another essential piece of this operant conditioning is the fact that it requires goal-directed learning, with the goal in American Idol, as mentioned earlier, being getting your favorite to win the competition through votes. The person who gets the least votes each week gets eliminated, proving the relevance of the stimuli and response of voting, further strengthening the conditioning of the audience. American Idols voting system represents a variable ratio negative reinforcement system. It is dictated by negative reinforcement because the voters are performing a response in order to avoid a bad outcome, in this case elimination. Variable ratio is one of the most powerful learning schedules, and American Idol uses it weekly, as there is never a set amount of votes that a contestant needs to avoid elimination. Therefore, passionate fans will spend hours dialing and redialing numbers out of the fear that their favorite contestant might not have enough. At the same time, even the casual fans will excitedly await the elimination show because there is no possible way of knowing who is going home. The operant conditioning structure is S1 (environmental stimulus) leads to a response which leads to S2 (consequence of response) which leads to another response, and so on. In American Idol, the audience is met with the environmental stimulus, S1, of voting for the singer you want to win on the night that they perform (Tuesday). The response, R, can either be vote, or

not vote. In turn, the next day (Wednesday) there is an elimination held, and there lies the consequence or S2. There are three consequences, your pick to win could be eliminated, put in the bottom three, or be completely safe. In response to the consequence, the audience members will react in different ways. If a certain girls favorite singer gets eliminated, she would have to switch to someone else or stop voting. If the girls favorite singer was in the bottom three, she will probably more adamantly vote the next week to try to make sure the singer doesnt lose next week. Finally, if the girls favorite is completely safe, she may relax on voting the next week assuming that the effort isnt needed. This cycle is repeated weekly, and the learning is actually very visible when the weekly results are analyzed. For example, one of the most popular contestants and one of the most successful post-Idol, Chris Daughtry, was unexpectedly eliminated in fourth place during Season 5. One explanation for why he was eliminated was because he was so clearly the favorite to win that fans didnt think they needed to vote for him. Their response of voting for Daughtry lowered and seemingly became extinct because they werent getting a stimulus (in this case, Daughtry getting close to elimination in previous weeks) that suggested the response of voting. These surprise eliminations are part of what keeps people interested, as it is actually affecting their learning and responses. Producers show clear signs of their understanding of Operant Conditioning by utilizing the role of causal interference in human learning. Humans are always looking for how their responses caused a certain results. This idea lends itself to superstitions or silly habits. In the case of American Idol, voters truly believe their votes can make a difference. In reality, when millions of votes are being cast for each contestant, there is a very statistically low possibility that your votes actually have any effect on the results. However, because of the natural human belief that

our responses are causing events, people will blame themselves for not voting at all or enough if their favorite gets eliminated, or give themselves credit for the opposite. In this way, the producers are leaving it to human nature to give them an audience and keep them hooked season after season. Even with Operant and Classical Conditioning being accounted for, the producers still use more tricks to gain and maintain their record-breaking audiences. One way is through the observational learning tactic of imitation. This tactic is actually extremely effective and doesnt require any new work by American Idol itself. As Amanda McClain of Temple University recognized, tens of millions of viewers tuning in every week, not to mention those who watch the recaps, DVR episodes, or just read the results, American Idol is consistently a topic of discussion at offices, schools, and other public places. Not only is Idol a fun discussion topic, McClain further suggests, but it also forms a group identity because of the seemingly intimate relationship between fans and the hopeful rising stars on the show (2). A person outside of the group (an already naturally vulnerable position) will see that those who watch the show are positively reinforced with inclusion in the group and everything that comes with that. If the person is affected by this, he will imitate the models actions and watch American Idol in order to get the same positive reinforcement. This is also known as vicarious reinforcement, and tends to be successful in social environments, especially when the observer perceives the reinforcers as relevant, and these fans, albeit not too faithful, can certainly help pad the ratings for the show and hopefully rein in some new dedicated fans occasionally. Another way that Idol producers have helped stay relevant in the minds of many fans is by using different parts of human memory to their advantage. Remaining as a permanent thought

in fans brains certainly aids in their return for next season, and American Idol is a able to do this because there are constant reminders of the show in the music industry. One important factor in putting ideas, in this case the show, in long-term memory is the amount and distribution of practice. Unlike reality shows like the Amazing Race or Survivor, where the winner(s) gets a million dollars at the end and usually falls out of the public eye, American Idol contestants are heard incessantly on radio stations and even other TV shows and movies. The constant barrage of American Idol contestants keeps the show itself relevant. Even those with established careers far outside the shows capacity, such as Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, will still always be remembered as winners on American Idol. In this way, fans are more or less practicing remembering different events from the show that are chunked with the artists they hear outside of Idol. As long as American Idol continues to produce mainstream stars, they will continue to make themselves more relevant to popular culture and inevitably become a very well rehearsed piece of information in the audiences memory. When specific moments, episodes, and contestants are all replayed in the minds of fans, their brains association to the show grows stronger. All of these ideas could certainly help explain the addictive quality of American Idol because the prevalence of for Idol stars in pop culture makes thinking about and (the producers hope) watching the show almost a second nature process. Nearly a decade ago, American Idol became an immediate enormous success for Fox. The ratings were extremely high even in the first season, and have since nearly tripled at its peak, and has remained one of the top programs every year. The true reason behind American Idols long term success has been its ability to maintain, captivate, and almost control the minds of the viewers since year one. Whether it be through the use of Classical Conditioning in their

commercials, Operant Conditioning in their voting system, or countless other examples of all kinds of conditioning and learning, the producers at American Idol have become masters at understanding and using the human psyche to their full advantage.

Works Cited Chance, Paul. (2008). Learning and Behavior. Belmont, California: Wadsworth. McClain, Amanda S. (2010). American Ideal: How American Idol Constructs Celebrity, Collective Identity, and American Discourses. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ProQuest.