Psych Unit 4

Classical Conditioning

Introduction

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904 for his study on digestion in dogs. But this isn’t what Pavlov is best known for. After winning the Nobel Prize, Pavlov stumbled upon an important concept in learning known today as classical conditioning.

Learned Automatic Responses

Classical conditioning is a method of learning in which a stimulus is paired with an automatic response after which a second neutral stimulus is introduced. The subject is taught to automatically associate the new stimulus with the response.

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Pavlov discovered this by watching dogs slobber. He brought food to the dogs to elicit salivation. He started by ringing a bell immediately before bringing food to the dogs. The dogs learned that the bell meant food was arriving. Soon, when the bell rang, the dogs began salivating regardless of whether food came or not.

Pavlov trained his dogs to associate the sound of the bell with food, leading to a conditioned response of salivation when the bell is rung, even if a meal is not provided.

If you check your phone when it makes the sound of your text notification, Apple has classically conditioned you to look for a message when you hear the sound. Ever checked when you heard your tone, but it was from someone else’s phone? The associated stimulus wasn’t there, but you checked anyway.

Essential Elements of Classical Conditioning

First, you need a neutral stimulus (NS). This elicits no response before conditioning. Until you associate your text notification with receiving a message you would not react to that sound.

There must be an unconditioned response (UR), or a natural, automatically occurring response. The naturally occurring response with Pavlov’s dogs was their slobber. Their brain was automatically telling their mouths to produce saliva for the food to come. The food was an unconditioned stimulus (US), or a stimulus that naturally and automatically elicits a response.

In the case of your phone, your automatic response when you get a text is to read. Today we get many messages via text, and we’ve quickly conditioned ourselves to respond to the sound of our text notifications.

We are constantly influenced by our conditioning, but we can be thankful that our conditioned response to a text is not to slobber but to read.

When you respond, not to getting a text but to the sound, the sound has become a conditioned stimulus (CS). A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that triggers a response, which before conditioning would not have led to any change in behavior.

The conditioned response (CR) is a learned response now associated with a previously neutral stimulus. Picking up your phone and checking your messages when you hear a previously meaningless tone are your conditioned responses.

Conditions for Conditioning

Several additional factors are important to understanding the process of classical conditioning.

In the Lab and in Practice

You learned about conditioning with Little Albert who was taught to fear a small white rat. Each time Little Albert saw the rat, researchers would make a loud, frightening noise. Albert soon paired the rat with the frightening noise, expecting it to come next. This occurred often enough that Albert cried and was frightened merely by the presence of the rat.

Learn to Change your Response

Conditioning can be used to reverse the same type of phobia Little Albert experienced. Systematic desensitization pairs relaxation with your fears. Individuals learn relaxation techniques and then use them every time they are exposed to their fear; they start with small levels of exposure and incrementally increase exposure until a previous fear triggers a relaxation technique rather than stress and anxiety.

Change Associations

Classical conditioning is one reason addiction is difficult to overcome. Addictive reactions have become automatic responses. A technique used with addiction is teaching individuals to avoid the stimulus creating the conditioned response. They are encouraged to recondition new responses. Someone might put a piece of gum in their mouth every time the craving to smoke hits instead of reaching for a cigarette.

Changing associations can also help ease anxiety, as transferring that energy to something else, like exercise or meditation, transforms the negative associations into positive ones.

Make it Unpleasant

Aversion therapy pairs an undesirable behavior with an unpleasant stimulus. Also used with addiction, you would pair something such as an unpleasant sound, taste, or smell with the addictive substance. Some therapy has gone so far as to pair it with electric shock—a controversial treatment.

Ride it Out

Another method used clinically is flooding, also known as exposure therapy. Practitioners expose individuals to massive amounts of stimuli causing an unwanted response. As the exposure to the unwanted reaction takes place, relaxation techniques are used. It is considered successful when the unwanted reaction no longer occurs.

If you were afraid of snakes, this would be putting you in a room full of snakes after teaching you some relaxation techniques and leaving you there until you learned to relax with the snakes rather than respond to your fear. This has proven to be a relatively quick technique; however, the unwanted reaction can often spontaneously reoccur.

Classical Conditioning is All Around You

School Bells

You’re conditioned to get up and move to your next class when the bell rings.

Classical conditioning is so effective because it works with our automatic responses, so behavior can be taught and then put on autopilot.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning has also been called the Law of Effect, which was developed by psychologist Edward Thorndike. He hypothesized that when behavior produced a pleasant response it would be more likely to be repeated, and behavior resulting in an unpleasant response would diminish.

The Bare Necessities

Like classical conditioning, operant conditioning is also a type of associative learning, an understanding that two events are related to one another.

Operant conditioning uses rewards and punishment to reinforce certain behaviors and decrease others.

Two types of reinforcement are used in operant conditioning:

 Positive Reinforcement

 Negative Reinforcement

Add something to increase a behavior.
Your parents offer you $100 for straight As or add extra chores for Fs to increase your behavior leading to As.

Reinforcements correlated with your biological needs are called primary reinforcers or automatic reinforcers. Diminished hunger pains reinforce your choice to eat.

Secondary or conditioned reinforcers are linked with a primary reinforcer to increase a behavior. Checking social media is so compelling because getting likes is associated with your primary need to belong and be accepted.

Secondary stimuli are very noticeable if you have pets, as the mere opening of a squeaky cabinet where food is stored will cause a conditioned response, even if other stimuli are not present. Diagram by Rose M. Spielman, PhD, distributed under a CC BY 4.0 license.

Timing Matters

Are you going to want to get straight As in 6^th grade if you don’t get $100 for it until you graduate high school? The way reinforcers are administered makes a difference.

Several reinforcement schedules lead to different results.

Punishment should not be confused with reinforcement. Whether positive or negative, reinforcement increases the occurrence of a behavior. Punishment works to extinguish a behavior.

One of the intentions of sending someone who breaks the law to jail is to deter future behavior as well as the behavior of others in a bid to avoid punishment.

In the Lab and in Practice

The law of effect was developed by Thorndike while experimenting with cats. He put a cat in a puzzle box with a piece of meat outside the box. When the cat solved the puzzle and escaped the box, it was rewarded. The cats escaped the box faster and faster to receive their reward.

The Skinner Box

Psychologist B.F. Skinner completed similar experiments using a device called the Skinner Box. Concepts of operant conditioning were developed as a result. Skinner used pigeons and rats to explore reinforcement.

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The animals were put in the Skinner Box, and each time they engaged in a behavior, (pecking a key for pigeons, pressing a lever for rats), they received a reward. At first, the rat or pigeon would incidentally participate in the behavior and receive a reward. After this happened repeatedly, the animals associated the behavior with a reward, thereby intentionally participating in the behavior.

Skinner also used electrical shock, removing it only when the lever was pushed, which also increased the rats’ behavior of pushing the lever. This established the idea of negative reinforcement or removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior.

Altering Behavior in Therapy

Several therapeutic approaches aim to modify behavior using operant conditioning.

Operant Conditioning is All Around Us

See if you can identify the type of reinforcement being used and why it is an example of operant conditioning.

Speeding Tickets

A ticket with a fine attached is given to increase the chance that individuals will drive the speed limit.

Praise for a Job Well-done

You get positive feedback for behavior that a parent, teacher, or mentor sees as beneficial for you and would like to be repeated.

No Homework at Night

Students who work hard in class during the day have homework removed from their evening.

As you go throughout your day, see if you can identify other examples of operant conditioning all around you.