Watson's famous Little Albert Experiment , for example, a small child was conditioned to fear a white rat. The child demonstrated stimulus generalization by also exhibiting fear in response to other fuzzy white objects including stuffed toys and Watson's own hair. Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
For example, if a bell tone were the conditioned stimulus, discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between the bell tone and other similar sounds.
Because the subject is able to distinguish between these stimuli, they will only respond when the conditioned stimulus is presented. It can be helpful to look at a few examples of how the classical conditioning process operates both in experimental and real-world settings. John B. Watson's experiment with Little Albert is a perfect example of the fear response. The child's fear also generalized to other fuzzy white objects.
Prior to the conditioning, the white rat was a neutral stimulus. The unconditioned stimulus was the loud, clanging sounds, and the unconditioned response was the fear response created by the noise. By repeatedly pairing the rat with the unconditioned stimulus, the white rat now the conditioned stimulus came to evoke the fear response now the conditioned response.
This experiment illustrates how phobias can form through classical conditioning. In many cases, a single pairing of a neutral stimulus a dog, for example and a frightening experience being bitten by the dog can lead to a lasting phobia being afraid of dogs. Another example of classical conditioning can be seen in the development of conditioned taste aversions. Researchers John Garcia and Bob Koelling first noticed this phenomenon when they observed how rats that had been exposed to a nausea-causing radiation developed an aversion to flavored water after the radiation and the water were presented together.
In this example, the radiation represents the unconditioned stimulus and the nausea represents the unconditioned response. After the pairing of the two, the flavored water is the conditioned stimulus, while the nausea that formed when exposed to the water alone is the conditioned response.
Later research demonstrated that such classically conditioned aversions could be produced through a single pairing of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. Researchers also found that such aversions can even develop if the conditioned stimulus the taste of the food is presented several hours before the unconditioned stimulus the nausea-causing stimulus.
Why do such associations develop so quickly? Obviously, forming such associations can have survival benefits for the organism.
If an animal eats something that makes it ill, it needs to avoid eating the same food in the future to avoid sickness or even death. This is a great example of what is known as biological preparedness. Some associations form more readily because they aid in survival. In one famous field study, researchers injected sheep carcasses with a poison that would make coyotes sick but not kill them. The goal was to help sheep ranchers reduce the number of sheep lost to coyote killings.
Not only did the experiment work by lowering the number of sheep killed, it also caused some of the coyotes to develop such a strong aversion to sheep that they would actually run away at the scent or sight of a sheep. In reality, people do not respond exactly like Pavlov's dogs. There are, however, numerous real-world applications for classical conditioning.
For example, many dog trainers use classical conditioning techniques to help people train their pets. These techniques are also useful for helping people cope with phobias or anxiety problems. Therapists might, for example, repeatedly pair something that provokes anxiety with relaxation techniques in order to create an association. Teachers are able to apply classical conditioning in the class by creating a positive classroom environment to help students overcome anxiety or fear.
Pairing an anxiety-provoking situation, such as performing in front of a group, with pleasant surroundings helps the student learn new associations. Instead of feeling anxious and tense in these situations, the child will learn to stay relaxed and calm. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Wolpe J, Plaud JJ. Pavlov's contributions to behavior therapy.
The obvious and not so obvious. Am Psychol. Holland JG. Behaviorism: Part of the problem or part of the solution. J Appl Behav Anal. Windholz G. Pavlov on the conditioned reflex method and its limitations. Am J Psychol. Experimental evidence of classical conditioning and microscopic engrams in an electroconductive material. Acquisition of conditioned responding in a multiple schedule depends on the reinforcement's temporal contingency with each stimulus.
Learn Mem. Facets of Pavlovian and operant extinction. Behav Processes. Thanellou A, Green JT. Spontaneous recovery but not reinstatement of the extinguished conditioned eyeblink response in the rat. Behav Neurosci. Many scholars find it difficult to criticize the idea of classical conditioning as an explanation to human behavior, but Classical conditioning has its benefits in a number of fields.
Understanding classical conditionings prove to marketers as a very important aspect in eliciting favorable responses from consumers through associative learning. Coon D. O Kalat J. W Introduction to Psychology Edition9. Lavond D. Steinmetz J. E Handbook of classical conditioning. New York, NY: Springer. Need a custom Cause and Effect Essay sample written from scratch by professional specifically for you?
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Removal Request. As an adaptive mechanism, conditioning helps shield an individual from harm or prepare them for important biological events, such as sexual activity. Thus, a stimulus that has occurred before sexual interaction comes to cause sexual arousal, which prepares the individual for sexual contact.
For example, sexual arousal has been conditioned in human subjects by pairing a stimulus like a picture of a jar of pennies with views of an erotic film clip. Similar experiments involving blue gourami fish and domesticated quail have shown that such conditioning can increase the number of offspring.
These results suggest that conditioning techniques might help to increase fertility rates in infertile individuals and endangered species. Classical conditioning has been used as a successful form of treatment in changing or modifying behaviors, such as substance abuse and smoking. Some therapies associated with classical conditioning include aversion therapy, systematic desensitization, and flooding. Aversion therapy is a type of behavior therapy designed to encourage individuals to give up undesirable habits by causing them to associate the habit with an unpleasant effect.
Systematic desensitization is a treatment for phobias in which the individual is trained to relax while being exposed to progressively more anxiety -provoking stimuli. Flooding is a form of desensitization that uses repeated exposure to highly distressing stimuli until the lack of reinforcement of the anxiety response causes its extinction. Classical conditioning is used not only in therapeutic interventions, but in everyday life as well.
Advertising executives, for example, are adept at applying the principles of associative learning. Think about the car commercials you have seen on television: many of them feature an attractive model. By associating the model with the car being advertised, you come to see the car as being desirable Cialdini,
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