Especially common in tight occupational circles, individuals can normalize ideas or behaviours that seem absurd or irrational to the external public.
[2] Burke is careful to say, "Incidentally, it might be well to recall that Professor Dewey does not use the word 'psychosis' in the psychiatric sense; it applies simply to a pronounced character of the mind" [original emphasis] (pg.
Actions based upon training and skills which have been successfully applied in the past may result in inappropriate responses under changed conditions.
Thus, to adopt a barnyard illustration used in this connection by Kenneth Burke, chickens may be readily conditioned to interpret the sound of a bell as a signal for food.
Once this psychosis is established by the authority of the food-getting patterns (which are certainly primary as regards problems of existence) it is carried over into other aspects of the tribal culture."