Classical conditioning

What are the underpinning principles of learning theory?

• Learning theories says that all behaviour is a result of our surroundings and environment - it emphasises that nurture is responsible for our behaviour.

• The roots of learning theory lie in behaviourism and considers that we are all born as ‘blank slates’/Tabula Rasa, which eternal forces shape.

According to classical conditioning theories, how is behaviour learnt?

• Pavlov - Russian psychologist - interested in behaviour and how we learn certain behaviour.

• The basis of learning theory is that we learn from association between stimulus and response and through a repeated learning process, our response becomes automatic.

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

• This is the object that initially causes an association.

What is an unconditioned response?

• This is the behaviour that is a result of being presented with the UCS/unconditioned stimulus.

What is a neutral stimulus?

• This is an object that initially has no effect on behaviour

What is a conditioned stimulus?

• The neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus during the process.

What is the conditioned response?

• This is the behaviour that automatically occurs at the presence of the CS/conditioned stimulus.

In pavlov’s dog experiment, how were the dogs prepared for the experiment?

• They were kept in individual booths in a harness.

• Pavlov placed a bowl of food in front of them to measure the rate of salivation.

How did Pavlov measure the rate of salivation?

• This was recorded on a rolling drum so that Pavlov could closely monitor salivation rates.

What piece of equipment was first used in the conditioning process?

• He used a metronome - a machine that produced regular ticking.

What was the standardised procedure that Pavlov used?

• First the dogs were presented with the food, and they salivated.

• The food was the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation was an unconditioned response (innate).

• Next Pavlov, began the conditioning procedure, where the clicking metronome was introduced just before he gave food to the dogs.

• After a number of repeats/trials of this procedure, he presented the metronome on its own.

Pictures to show the process of classical conditioning

What is Pavlov’s research criticised for?

• Pavlov’s research is criticised for the use of animals, and how the behaviour that they may display may not be generalisable or fully representative of how humans behave.

• Poor cross species generalisability.

But why did Pavlov use dogs, despite this?

• It would be unethical for Pavlov or anyone else to use humans in this kind of research.

• There are, however, many positives that have come from Pavlov’s research.

What is generalisation?

• After the process of classical conditioning has taken place, sometimes there is a tendency for the conditioned response to occur when similar conditioned stimuli are presented.

• So, a dog may begin to salivate at the sound of different types of bell, or maybe even a phone ringing.

• Similar stimulus trigger the same conditioned response.

What is spontaneous recovery?

• Once we have conditioned a behaviour, it can be reversed.

• E.g. if we didn’t want the dog to salivate at the sound of a metronome we would have to try and reverse the process of classical conditioning.

• We would do this by presenting the food repeatedly without the metronome - hopefully the dog will then disassociate the sound of the bell with the food and won’t salivate.

• If we wanted to start the process again however, the chances are that the dog will learn the original association very quickly.

• This accelerated learning process is called spontaneous recovery.

What are the evaluation points for ‘the foundation of behaviourism’?

Strength

• Pavlov’s work laid the foundation for behaviourism, a major school of thought in psychology.

• The principles of classical conditioning have been used to explain a wide range of behaviours, from phobias to food aversions.

What are the evaluation points for ‘Research support from Little Albert’?

Strength

• The Little Albert experiment, conducted by Watson and Rayner in 1920, demonstrated that emotional responses could be classically conditioned in humans.

• A young child, ‘little Albert’ was conditioned to fear a white rat - which generalised to similar objects.

What are the evaluation points for ‘therapy techniques’?

Strength

• Techniques based on classical conditioning, such as systematic desensitisation and aversion therapy have been developed to treat a variety of psychological disorders - including phobias.

• In these therapies, a conditioned response (such as fear) can be gradually ‘unlearned’ by changing the association between a specific stimulus and its response.

What are the evaluation points for ‘educational strategies’?

Strength/weakness

• Educational strategies like repetitive learning and rote memorisation can be seen as a repeated association between stimulus and response, can help to reinforce learning.

• It can be used to also explain students in educational institutions as we are all conditioned to the bell and trained to sit wherever our seating plan says.

• However, Ethically problematic/social control - using psychological techniques to control people's behaviour. 

What are the evaluation points for ‘Empiricism’?

Strength

• A lot of this research is strictly scientific, being carried out on animals in lab conditions or using brain imaging techniques like MRI.

• Because the theory only looks at behaviours (rather than cognitions), every step in the conditioning process is observable.

• This adds to the credibility of the theory, since you can see it happen with your own eyes.