Operant Conditioning And Social Learning

Classical conditioning is defined as a neutral stimulus being paired with a stimulus that leads to a reflexive response. These are events that happen in the everyday world and we predict them to happen, anticipating what’s to come next. Pavlov’s dogs have been served as an infamous example of classical conditioning, as they would salivate when he opened the door to feed them. My example is not of with Pavlov’s dogs, but of my own. Although, my dog is very playful and has a plethora of toys. Using his toys, usually come in handy when trying to

“The assistant’s footsteps, for example, seemed to act like a trigger (the stimulus) for the dog to start salivating (the response). Pavlov had discovered how associations develop through the process of learning, which he referred to as conditioning (Licht, 2016) The dog was correlating the sound of footsteps with the coming of food; it had been conditioned to subordinate certain sights and sounds with eating. Intrigued by his discovery, Pavlov decided to focus his research of dogs’ salivation (which he termed “psychic secretions”) in these types of scenarios (Fancher & Rutherford, 2012, p. 248; Watson, 1968). Pavlov’s examinations led to the development of classical conditioning.

Our understanding of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning has allowed us to unlock many of the answers we sought to learn about human behavior. Classical conditioning is a technique of behavioral training, coined by Ivan Pavlov, which basically states that an organism learns through establishing associations between different events and stimuli. This helps us understand human behavior in an assortment of ways. It makes it clear that almost everything we do is based on patterns of stimulus and response. For example, if you were bitten aggressively by a dog as a child, you may be still scared of dogs today. That is because the dog caused you pain, which in turn caused you have anxiety towards dogs.

Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning which occurs when two stimuli are paired together repetitively and therefore become associated with each other eventually producing the same response. Classical conditioning was developed from the findings of Ivan Pavlov to account for associations between neutral stimuli and reflexive behavior such as salivation. Pavlov (1927) accidently discovered that dogs began to salivate before they had tasted their food. To support his theory, he carried out experiments using dogs which involved measuring the amount of saliva they produced. In his experiments, food started off as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which produced salivation, an unconditioned response (UCR). They are both unconditioned as they occur naturally without being learned. The dogs were presented with a bell (NS), this provided no salivation. The bell and food were presented together and after many trails an

When the assistants arrived or when noises suggesting their arrival were heard the dog produced the same results. He recognized this as a learned behavior and began to focus on that (Pavlov, 1890s). Four things are used to achieve classical conditioning. Those are: an unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response. Once the organism connects these four pieces then classical conditioning has been accomplished (Pavlov, 1980s).

Classical conditioning is learning that occurs trough association can be defined as a type of learning in which a conditioned stimulus (sound of a bell, Pavlov) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (food) to evoke a response. In the early twentieth century Pavlov’s research included dogs that would start to salivate when food was presented. Pavlov suggested that salivation was a learned response. During the research a bell was rang when the food was presented, the dog salivated

Classical conditioning is learning which has been acquired by experience (Terry, 2009).  Pavlov was the first one to experiment classical conditioning by training dogs how to salivate when they heard a bell ring.  In order for Pavlov to be able to do this, the first step was to show the dogs food.  The showing of food would cause the dogs to salivate.  Afterward, Pavlov would ring a bell whenever he brought food out. The experimenter continued to this many times.  Eventually, by the time the

He investigated his theory further by repeatedly pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditional stimulus, such as the ringing of a bell with the arrival of food; this eventually led to the bell ringing alone causing the dog to salivate. Pavlov believed the bell was a conditional stimulus and salivating to the bell was considered the conditional response.

This is known as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Meat is the unconditioned stimulus because at the sight of the meat the dogs begin to salivate (Feldman, 2010).   The dog’s response to the meat educes salivation and is known as the unconditioned response (UCR). An unconditioned response is defined as a reflexive and natural response that is not connected to prior learning. Unconditioned responses always occur in the presence of the unconditioned stimulus (Feldman, 2010).   While conditioning the dogs, Pavlov would ring a bell right before the presentation of meat. Eventually, the dogs would associate the ringing of the bell with the meat. Therefore, the dogs would begin to salivate at the sound of the bell. At this point, Pavlov could state that he had classically conditioned his dogs. The bell which was a prior neutral stimulus had now become the conditioned stimulus (CS) that brought forth the conditioned response (CR) of salivation (Feldman, 2010). Moreover, we have to ask what would happen if these poor dogs were never again received food upon the ringing of the bell. This would lead to extinction. Extinction occurs when a prior conditioned response decreases in frequency and eventually disappears (Feldman, 2010).   In order for Pavlov to unconditioned his dogs he would have to break their association with the sound of the ringing bell and the presentation of food. To do so he

Operant conditioning is considered the second learning principle. This type of learning occurs due to the cause-and-effect relationship between a behavior and its consequences. Operant conditioning has a common sense element. When we reward a behavior, it increases. When we punish a behavior, it decreases (Horvath et.al. 2013). Individuals who dislike particular substances have little risk for developing an addiction to those substances. Such dislikes to certain drugs or substances are not uncommon. Some people do not enjoy certain substances so therefore this protects them from developing an addiction simply because those substances are not enjoyable so therefore they are not rewarding (Horvath et. al. 2013), because addiction is considered

Once I’ve finished my reading on the different theories of childhood development, I came to the conclusion that there are three theories that I can apply and relate to my childhood development. The three theories I believe best explains my development during my childhood are Psychosocial, Operant Conditioning, and Social Learning Theory. Each of these theories played a role in a different stage of my life growing up. The Psychosocial Theory is divided into eight stages, each stage having a task or crisis that needs to be overcome. These challenges and task continue to shape and change us throughout our life span. One of the eight stages is identity vs. role confusion, this particular stage correlates with my high school years. During this time,

Of the five perspectives covered in chapter 2, the Learning perspective would be the most beneficial to a mother trying to teach her child to say “please.” While other perspectives might give more insight into the how and why a child develops in a certain fashion, changing a child’s behavior is best accomplished through operant conditioning.

Thanks to Pavlov, a Russian scientist, the experiment that was The Conditioned Reflex, which consisted of ringing a bell and feeding dogs. After the experiment went on for some time, he found that at the sound of the bell, the dogs would begin to salivate, knowing that they would be fed.

Ivan Pavlov was a psychologist in Russia in the early twentieth century. He was doing research on the salivation in dogs in response to being fed. He noticed that his dogs would begin to salivate whenever he entered the room, even when he was not bringing them food. At first he did not think much of this, but he decided to look more into this. He did more experiments with the dogs and different stimuli. Through his new experiments he came up with the theory of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus; because of this pairing, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus with the same power as the unconditioned stimulus to elicit

In this journal log, I will be explaining 3 theories which are known as Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning and Observational Learning. The first theory I will be elaborating on is “Classical Conditioning” (Weiten, 2017). This theory suggests that anyone is able to subconsciously learn to react physically to a neutral stimulus, something that originally does not elicit a certain reaction from them, by linking it to certain behaviours, events or stimuli. In classical conditioning, there is the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus and conditioned response (Weiten, 2017).