Most of us - even though we are infinite choice-makers - have become bundles of conditioned reflexes that are constantly being triggered by people & circumstances into predictable outcomes of behavior. These conditioned reflexes are like Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlov is famous for demonstrating that if you give a dog something to eat every time you ring a bell, soon the dog starts to salivate when you just ring the bell, because it has associated one stimulus with the other.

Deepak Chopra / The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success