critical thinking activity steps in classical conditioning answers

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7.1 Learning by Association: Classical Conditioning

Learning objectives.

• Describe how Pavlov’s early work in classical conditioning influenced the understanding of learning.
• Review the concepts of classical conditioning, including unconditioned stimulus (US), conditioned stimulus (CS), unconditioned response (UR), and conditioned response (CR).
• Explain the roles that extinction, generalization, and discrimination play in conditioned learning.

Pavlov Demonstrates Conditioning in Dogs

In the early part of the 20th century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) was studying the digestive system of dogs when he noticed an interesting behavioral phenomenon: The dogs began to salivate when the lab technicians who normally fed them entered the room, even though the dogs had not yet received any food. Pavlov realized that the dogs were salivating because they knew that they were about to be fed; the dogs had begun to associate the arrival of the technicians with the food that soon followed their appearance in the room.

Figure 7.2 Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov’s research made substantial contributions to our understanding of learning.

LIFE Photo Archive – Wikimedia Commons – public domain.

With his team of researchers, Pavlov began studying this process in more detail. He conducted a series of experiments in which, over a number of trials, dogs were exposed to a sound immediately before receiving food. He systematically controlled the onset of the sound and the timing of the delivery of the food, and recorded the amount of the dogs’ salivation. Initially the dogs salivated only when they saw or smelled the food, but after several pairings of the sound and the food, the dogs began to salivate as soon as they heard the sound. The animals had learned to associate the sound with the food that followed.

Pavlov had identified a fundamental associative learning process called classical conditioning . Classical conditioning refers to learning that occurs when a neutral stimulus (e.g., a tone) becomes associated with a stimulus (e.g., food) that naturally produces a behavior . After the association is learned, the previously neutral stimulus is sufficient to produce the behavior.

As you can see in Figure 7.3 “4-Panel Image of Whistle and Dog” , psychologists use specific terms to identify the stimuli and the responses in classical conditioning. The unconditioned stimulus (US) is something (such as food) that triggers a natural occurring response , and the unconditioned response (UR) is the naturally occurring response (such as salivation) that follows the unconditioned stimulus . The conditioned stimulus (CS) is a neutral stimulus that, after being repeatedly presented prior to the unconditioned stimulus, evokes a similar response as the unconditioned stimulus . In Pavlov’s experiment, the sound of the tone served as the conditioned stimulus that, after learning, produced the conditioned response (CR) , which is the acquired response to the formerly neutral stimulus . Note that the UR and the CR are the same behavior—in this case salivation—but they are given different names because they are produced by different stimuli (the US and the CS, respectively).

Figure 7.3 4-Panel Image of Whistle and Dog

Top left: Before conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus (US) naturally produces the unconditioned response (UR). Top right: Before conditioning, the neutral stimulus (the whistle) does not produce the salivation response. Bottom left: The unconditioned stimulus (US), in this case the food, is repeatedly presented immediately after the neutral stimulus. Bottom right: After learning, the neutral stimulus (now known as the conditioned stimulus or CS), is sufficient to produce the conditioned responses (CR).

Conditioning is evolutionarily beneficial because it allows organisms to develop expectations that help them prepare for both good and bad events. Imagine, for instance, that an animal first smells a new food, eats it, and then gets sick. If the animal can learn to associate the smell (CS) with the food (US), then it will quickly learn that the food creates the negative outcome, and not eat it the next time.

The Persistence and Extinction of Conditioning

After he had demonstrated that learning could occur through association, Pavlov moved on to study the variables that influenced the strength and the persistence of conditioning. In some studies, after the conditioning had taken place, Pavlov presented the sound repeatedly but without presenting the food afterward. Figure 7.4 “Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery” shows what happened. As you can see, after the intial acquisition (learning) phase in which the conditioning occurred, when the CS was then presented alone, the behavior rapidly decreased—the dogs salivated less and less to the sound, and eventually the sound did not elicit salivation at all. Extinction refers to the reduction in responding that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus .

Figure 7.4 Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery

Acquisition: The CS and the US are repeatedly paired together and behavior increases. Extinction: The CS is repeatedly presented alone, and the behavior slowly decreases. Spontaneous recovery: After a pause, when the CS is again presented alone, the behavior may again occur and then again show extinction.

Although at the end of the first extinction period the CS was no longer producing salivation, the effects of conditioning had not entirely disappeared. Pavlov found that, after a pause, sounding the tone again elicited salivation, although to a lesser extent than before extinction took place. The increase in responding to the CS following a pause after extinction is known as spontaneous recovery . When Pavlov again presented the CS alone, the behavior again showed extinction until it disappeared again.

Although the behavior has disappeared, extinction is never complete. If conditioning is again attempted, the animal will learn the new associations much faster than it did the first time.

Pavlov also experimented with presenting new stimuli that were similar, but not identical to, the original conditioned stimulus. For instance, if the dog had been conditioned to being scratched before the food arrived, the stimulus would be changed to being rubbed rather than scratched. He found that the dogs also salivated upon experiencing the similar stimulus, a process known as generalization . Generalization refers to the tendency to respond to stimuli that resemble the original conditioned stimulus . The ability to generalize has important evolutionary significance. If we eat some red berries and they make us sick, it would be a good idea to think twice before we eat some purple berries. Although the berries are not exactly the same, they nevertheless are similar and may have the same negative properties.

Lewicki (1985) conducted research that demonstrated the influence of stimulus generalization and how quickly and easily it can happen. In his experiment, high school students first had a brief interaction with a female experimenter who had short hair and glasses. The study was set up so that the students had to ask the experimenter a question, and (according to random assignment) the experimenter responded either in a negative way or a neutral way toward the students. Then the students were told to go into a second room in which two experimenters were present, and to approach either one of them. However, the researchers arranged it so that one of the two experimenters looked a lot like the original experimenter, while the other one did not (she had longer hair and no glasses). The students were significantly more likely to avoid the experimenter who looked like the earlier experimenter when that experimenter had been negative to them than when she had treated them more neutrally. The participants showed stimulus generalization such that the new, similar-looking experimenter created the same negative response in the participants as had the experimenter in the prior session.

The flip side of generalization is discrimination — the tendency to respond differently to stimuli that are similar but not identical . Pavlov’s dogs quickly learned, for example, to salivate when they heard the specific tone that had preceded food, but not upon hearing similar tones that had never been associated with food. Discrimination is also useful—if we do try the purple berries, and if they do not make us sick, we will be able to make the distinction in the future. And we can learn that although the two people in our class, Courtney and Sarah, may look a lot alike, they are nevertheless different people with different personalities.

In some cases, an existing conditioned stimulus can serve as an unconditioned stimulus for a pairing with a new conditioned stimulus —a process known as second-order conditioning . In one of Pavlov’s studies, for instance, he first conditioned the dogs to salivate to a sound, and then repeatedly paired a new CS, a black square, with the sound. Eventually he found that the dogs would salivate at the sight of the black square alone, even though it had never been directly associated with the food. Secondary conditioners in everyday life include our attractions to things that stand for or remind us of something else, such as when we feel good on a Friday because it has become associated with the paycheck that we receive on that day, which itself is a conditioned stimulus for the pleasures that the paycheck buys us.

The Role of Nature in Classical Conditioning

As we have seen in Chapter 1 “Introducing Psychology” , scientists associated with the behavioralist school argued that all learning is driven by experience, and that nature plays no role. Classical conditioning, which is based on learning through experience, represents an example of the importance of the environment. But classical conditioning cannot be understood entirely in terms of experience. Nature also plays a part, as our evolutionary history has made us better able to learn some associations than others.

Clinical psychologists make use of classical conditioning to explain the learning of a phobia — a strong and irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation . For example, driving a car is a neutral event that would not normally elicit a fear response in most people. But if a person were to experience a panic attack in which he suddenly experienced strong negative emotions while driving, he may learn to associate driving with the panic response. The driving has become the CS that now creates the fear response.

Psychologists have also discovered that people do not develop phobias to just anything. Although people may in some cases develop a driving phobia, they are more likely to develop phobias toward objects (such as snakes, spiders, heights, and open spaces) that have been dangerous to people in the past. In modern life, it is rare for humans to be bitten by spiders or snakes, to fall from trees or buildings, or to be attacked by a predator in an open area. Being injured while riding in a car or being cut by a knife are much more likely. But in our evolutionary past, the potential of being bitten by snakes or spiders, falling out of a tree, or being trapped in an open space were important evolutionary concerns, and therefore humans are still evolutionarily prepared to learn these associations over others (Öhman & Mineka, 2001; LoBue & DeLoache, 2010).

Another evolutionarily important type of conditioning is conditioning related to food. In his important research on food conditioning, John Garcia and his colleagues (Garcia, Kimeldorf, & Koelling, 1955; Garcia, Ervin, & Koelling, 1966) attempted to condition rats by presenting either a taste, a sight, or a sound as a neutral stimulus before the rats were given drugs (the US) that made them nauseous. Garcia discovered that taste conditioning was extremely powerful—the rat learned to avoid the taste associated with illness, even if the illness occurred several hours later. But conditioning the behavioral response of nausea to a sight or a sound was much more difficult. These results contradicted the idea that conditioning occurs entirely as a result of environmental events, such that it would occur equally for any kind of unconditioned stimulus that followed any kind of conditioned stimulus. Rather, Garcia’s research showed that genetics matters—organisms are evolutionarily prepared to learn some associations more easily than others. You can see that the ability to associate smells with illness is an important survival mechanism, allowing the organism to quickly learn to avoid foods that are poisonous.

Classical conditioning has also been used to help explain the experience of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as in the case of P. K. Philips described in the chapter opener. PTSD is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to a fearful event, such as the threat of death (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). PTSD occurs when the individual develops a strong association between the situational factors that surrounded the traumatic event (e.g., military uniforms or the sounds or smells of war) and the US (the fearful trauma itself). As a result of the conditioning, being exposed to, or even thinking about the situation in which the trauma occurred (the CS), becomes sufficient to produce the CR of severe anxiety (Keane, Zimering, & Caddell, 1985).

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represents a case of classical conditioning to a severe trauma that does not easily become extinct. In this case the original fear response, experienced during combat, has become conditioned to a loud noise. When the person with PTSD hears a loud noise, she experiences a fear response even though she is now far from the site of the original trauma.

Marc Wathieu – Luigi Coppola – CC BY-NC 2.0.

PTSD develops because the emotions experienced during the event have produced neural activity in the amygdala and created strong conditioned learning. In addition to the strong conditioning that people with PTSD experience, they also show slower extinction in classical conditioning tasks (Milad et al., 2009). In short, people with PTSD have developed very strong associations with the events surrounding the trauma and are also slow to show extinction to the conditioned stimulus.

Key Takeaways

• In classical conditioning, a person or animal learns to associate a neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) with a stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus, or US) that naturally produces a behavior (the unconditioned response, or UR). As a result of this association, the previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit the same response (the conditioned response, or CR).
• Extinction occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US, and the CR eventually disappears, although it may reappear later in a process known as spontaneous recovery.
• Stimulus generalization occurs when a stimulus that is similar to an already-conditioned stimulus begins to produce the same response as the original stimulus does.
• Stimulus discrimination occurs when the organism learns to differentiate between the CS and other similar stimuli.
• In second-order conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes a CS after being paired with a previously established CS.
• Some stimuli—response pairs, such as those between smell and food—are more easily conditioned than others because they have been particularly important in our evolutionary past.

Exercises and Critical Thinking

• A teacher places gold stars on the chalkboard when the students are quiet and attentive. Eventually, the students start becoming quiet and attentive whenever the teacher approaches the chalkboard. Can you explain the students’ behavior in terms of classical conditioning?
• Recall a time in your life, perhaps when you were a child, when your behaviors were influenced by classical conditioning. Describe in detail the nature of the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli and the response, using the appropriate psychological terms.
• If posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a type of classical conditioning, how might psychologists use the principles of classical conditioning to treat the disorder?

American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed., text rev.). Washington, DC: Author.

Garcia, J., Ervin, F. R., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Learning with prolonged delay of reinforcement. Psychonomic Science, 5 (3), 121–122.

Garcia, J., Kimeldorf, D. J., & Koelling, R. A. (1955). Conditioned aversion to saccharin resulting from exposure to gamma radiation. Science, 122 , 157–158.

Keane, T. M., Zimering, R. T., & Caddell, J. M. (1985). A behavioral formulation of posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. The Behavior Therapist, 8 (1), 9–12.

Lewicki, P. (1985). Nonconscious biasing effects of single instances on subsequent judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48 , 563–574.

LoBue, V., & DeLoache, J. S. (2010). Superior detection of threat-relevant stimuli in infancy. Developmental Science, 13 (1), 221–228.

Milad, M. R., Pitman, R. K., Ellis, C. B., Gold, A. L., Shin, L. M., Lasko, N. B.,…Rauch, S. L. (2009). Neurobiological basis of failure to recall extinction memory in posttraumatic stress disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 66 (12), 1075–82.

Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108 (3), 483–522.

Introduction to Psychology Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Classical Conditioning Learning Theory: 4 Classroom Examples

Would you enjoy the opportunity to have students quietly transition between activities with little disruption?

For any teacher, these scenarios sound like a dream. With classical conditioning, we can make them a reality.

Pavlov and the salivating dogs is the notorious classical conditioning experiment. Although it seems primitive, this research has practical applications in the classroom. Read on to hear how an old theory has the potential to breed new tricks in the classroom.

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This Article Contains:

Learning theory and classical conditioning explained, conditioning in the classroom: 4 examples, how to apply classical conditioning in the classroom, 8 worksheets and games for teachers, resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

“Every existing organism must in some way or another be sensitive to both meaningful as well as more coincidental relations between events in the environment.”

Eelen, 2018, p. 197

To understand this concept is to understand the premise of classical conditioning.

As learning can be described as an adaptive change in an individual’s behavior, learning theory is the approach, either physical or mental, responsible for changing the behavior (McLean & Christensen, 2017).

Learning theory includes both non-associative and associative learning. Classical conditioning is considered associative learning, as there is an association between two stimuli or events that cause the change in behavior.

To gain a better understanding of learning theory and classical conditioning, let’s explore the infamous experiment involving the salivation of dogs. Pavlov (1927) noticed that his research dogs began salivating around mealtimes, which is a natural response to eating; however, the salivation began even before the dogs ate.

Observing this phenomenon, Pavlov theorized he could elicit the salivation of dogs by presenting another stimulus to produce the same response. Pavlov introduced a bell tone before the dogs were given their food, and the dogs salivated at the tone of the bell.

Watson’s controversial experiment involving Little Albert is also an example of classical conditioning (Powell, Digdon, Harris, & Smithson, 2014). Little Albert was a young boy who was introduced to a white rat. At first, he enjoyed playing with and petting the rat; however, Watson began pairing the furry rat with a loud sound. Soon, Little Albert associated the rat with the loud noise, which made him cry.

Watson could eventually present the white rat without the loud noise and elicit a cry from Little Albert. It was theorized that Little Albert would develop a phobia of furry animals.

Simply put, classical conditioning is learning associations between two events (Eelen, 2018). To change a behavior using classical conditioning, you must pair the conditional stimulus (CS) with an unconditional stimulus (US), and then the conditioned response (CR) now comes to be elicited by the CS, with many opportunities for practice of course (Bouton & Moody, 2004). This process may be better understood with a few examples.

Perhaps students have music class before lunch every day. Halfway through music class, their stomachs may begin to rumble, similar to the salivation of the dogs in Pavlov’s experiment. The children may actually start to associate music class with hunger.

• Neutral stimulus (NS): After music class
• Unconditional stimulus (US): Eating lunch
• Unconditional response (UR): Feeling hungry
• Conditional stimulus (CS): Music class
• Conditional response (CR): Feeling hungry

As a child, perhaps you were given a special treat or privilege upon earning good grades on report cards or progress reports. You may have begun to associate good grades with a special treat.

Research has shown that parents’ perceptions have a stronger influence over children’s sense of self and task perceptions, even more so than their own grades (Frome & Eccles, 1998). Let’s break it down in the following example:

• NS: Good report card grades
• US: Going for ice cream
• UR: Feeling excited
• CS: Good report card grades
• CR: Feeling excited

It comes as no surprise that mistreatment, which can include public humiliation, may lead to student burnout and poor mental health (Markman, Soeprono, Combs, & Cosgrove, 2019).

Being humiliated by a teacher could still be haunting you today. Let’s say that a math teacher embarrassed a student. That student may develop a dislike for the subject that follows them even into adulthood.

• NS: Student performs poorly in math class
• US: Getting lectured by the math teacher
• UR: Feeling embarrassed
• CR: Feeling embarrassed

Classical conditioning can also be exhibited in forms of technology. Computer games that play different sounds when you get the correct or incorrect answer are prime examples. Baccus, Baldwin, and Packer (2004) designed a study that demonstrated that implicit self-esteem can be increased using a computer game that repeatedly pairs self-relevant information with smiling faces.

• NS: Getting the correct answer
• US: Hearing a high-pitched “ding!”
• UR: Feeling pleased with yourself
• CS: The high-pitched “ding!”
• CR: Feeling pleased with yourself

Classical conditioning examples – Kimberly Henderson

There are several excellent ways to apply classical conditioning in school, and we review a few of the options.

Attention-getters

Attention-getters such as turning off the lights, rhyming, student callbacks, hand signals, a bell, music, or when the teacher simply stops talking could be used to obtain students’ attention.

For example, a teacher may say, “Class, class!” and the class is expected to call back, “Yes, yes!” and then wait for the teacher’s next direction. Modeling this behavior will be crucial to beginning the conditioning process.

Transition notifications

Transition notifications such as a bell, gong, chimes, music, or a clap may sometimes be used to notify students of a transition. As an example, a teacher may strike a gong to alert students it is time to switch centers and move on to the next activity.

Creating a procedure for quick transitions will grant the teacher additional instructional time. Just as with the attention-getter, the teacher will want to explicitly model the expected behavior and review the expectations often. Please see how to play a transition game below.

Positive feedback

Positive feedback is an easy way to keep the students who are doing the right thing on track while motivating students who are off-track to switch courses.

The students who receive the positive feedback will associate the activity they are being praised for with a good feeling. Most students will continue to demonstrate the behavior.

The students who may not be showing the desired behavior may hear the positive feedback toward the other students and wish to receive the positive feedback as well. They will then, most likely, exhibit the desired behavior. Of course, there are always exceptions. This concept borders operant conditioning with positive reinforcement .

Answer cueing

Answer cueing may be used to provide students a procedure for answering questions, as well as grant students additional “think time.” This technique prevents fast-paced students from shouting out the answers to questions before the other students can process the question and formulate an answer.

For example, a teacher may raise their hands up while asking the question, keep the hands up an extra few seconds, and then bring the hands down with palms facing upward, signaling students they are now permitted to answer the question.

While this “think time” typically lasts only 1.5 seconds, research has shown that waiting three seconds or more will benefit the students (Stahl, 1994). This additional processing time can encourage more students to contribute to the lesson and answer the question presented by the teacher.

Unfortunately, classical conditioning can also hinder learning. As demonstrated, a bad experience in a certain class or with a specific teacher may cause a student to dislike that particular subject in general.

To make classical conditioning more concrete for students or support the learning even more, classical conditioning can be paired with operant conditioning. The pairing of classical conditioning and operant conditioning would involve the use of reinforcements.

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Behavior management is a particularly troublesome skill for many new and veteran teachers.

Classical Conditioning & Your Classroom

Classical Conditioning Graphic Organizer

The Classical Conditioning Graphic Organizer is available on Teachers Pay Teachers for free. This is a helpful resource to understand Pavlov’s dog salivation experiment and record other conditioning examples you would like to try in the classroom.

Classical conditioning balloon pop game

This balloon pop game from Teachers Pay Teachers is an activity to demonstrate and help teach older students what classical conditioning is all about.

In this activity, the teacher walks around the room and randomly pops balloons. Then the teacher walks around the room without popping the balloons, noting to the class that students continue to flinch.

The students are conditioned to flinch as the teacher walks around the classroom popping the balloons; however, they continue to flinch even when the teacher does not pop the balloons.

Matching activities

Matching activities , such as Memory, are an excellent way to build focus, memory, and matching skills, while using classical conditioning to motivate the players.

In a matching game, the player chooses a card to turn over. The player then chooses another card to turn over, and if the card matches the first, the player keeps the cards. Discovering that the pictures or items on the card match, the player is conditioned to be more mindful of other cards’ locations as they are being turned over.

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Pulse conditioning game

Pulse conditioning involves two students taking each other’s pulse. One student takes the other student’s pulse after they have been relaxing for two minutes. Then the pulse recorder taps their pencil five times, and the relaxing student must stand up and hop on one foot for 30 seconds. The pulse is taken again, and this act is repeated five times.

After the fifth time, the recorder taps the pencil five times and the other student does not get up. The recorder takes the student’s pulse, and the pulse should be as high as it was after the student was hopping (Leonard, 2018).

Cue-set activity

The c ue-set activity requires the teacher to tap a desk three times with a yardstick and then tap the student’s head once. This is repeated three times. The fourth time, the teacher taps the desk four times, and the class should be able to witness the student’s anticipation of the tap on the head (Leonard, 2018).

Conditioned response buzzer

In the conditioned response buzzer activity, the teacher provides a text with some words that are in bold font. The teacher instructs students to tap their pencil every time the word “the” is read.

While students are reading, the teacher rings a bell when every bold word is read. Soon students will begin to tap their pencil whenever a bold word is read, in addition to all the instances of “the.” This activity shows how quickly classical conditioning can take effect (Leonard, 2018).

Timely Transitions Game

The Timely Transitions Game offers students a class-wide reward for completing appropriate transitions (Yarbrough, Skinner, Lee, & Lemmons, 2004).

This activity allows teachers to consider several types of criteria, which may include the duration of the transition or the noise level of the students. The teacher discusses the expectations and posts them in the front of the room.

Demonstration and modeling of an appropriate transition are critical for student understanding. As the transitions occur, the teacher times the students using a stopwatch and writes the time on chart paper that is visible to the class. This strategy alone decreased the transition times (Yarbrough et al., 2004).

At the end of the day, the teacher randomly chooses a transition criteria (time or noise level), and if the students achieved this time or goal, a letter is written on the board.

The letters in this particular study spelled out P-A-R-T-Y, and once the students earned these letters, they received their group reinforcer: a party.

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For more information on classical conditioning, check out What Is the Classical Conditioning Theory? 6 Real-Life Examples .

To learn more about the social learning theory specifically, please refer to What Is Bandura’s Social Learning Theory? 3 Examples .

Although somewhat different, if you are interested in learning more about operant conditioning, you may want to reference our article on Operant Conditioning Theory .

To dive deeper into classical conditioning studies, especially if you are interested in learning more about the specific types of stimuli and responses involved in the classical conditioning process, check out 4 Fascinating Classical Conditioning & Behaviorism Studies .

What Is the Classical Conditioning Theory? 6 Real-Life Examples includes a helpful diagram for understanding the conditioning process and may even help you develop your own classical conditioning exercises in your classroom.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others enhance their wellbeing, check out this signature collection of 17 validated positive psychology tools for practitioners. Use them to help others flourish and thrive.

Like Pavlov’s dogs and Watson’s Little Albert experiments, children can be conditioned in the classroom. An educator can use this learning theory to improve classroom instruction and behavior management. Likewise, a school staff member will also need to be mindful not to condition children negatively, as it could lead to long-term effects.

It is important for educators to know that children’s self-esteem can also be altered by conditioning. In the study by Baccus et al. (2004), the participants who were exposed to combinations of self-relevant information and smiling faces showed increased implicit self-esteem compared to control subjects.

We gather from this research that self-esteem is malleable, and teachers have the potential to elevate students’ self-esteem through classical conditioning. Likewise, teachers have the power to apply extinction practices so that students no longer associate certain events with negative thoughts of themselves. Praising a student for even the slightest act cannot be emphasized enough for having a monumental impact on students’ lives.

We can observe classical conditioning through classroom behavior management, class routines, or even the educational games that students play. It is an excellent tool to reinforce learning, and learning can be delivered to an entire class. May this old learning theory bring a new light to providing instruction and managing your classroom.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

• Baccus, J. R., Baldwin, M. W., & Packer, D. J. (2004). Increasing implicit self-esteem through classical conditioning. Psychological Science , 15 (7), 498–502.
• Bouton, M. E., & Moody, E. W. (2004). Memory processes in classical conditioning. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews , 28 (7), 663–674.
• Eelen, P. (2018). Classical conditioning: Classical yet modern. Psychologica Belgica , 58 (1), 196–211.
• Frome, P. M., & Eccles, J. S. (1998). Parents’ influence on children’s achievement-related perceptions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 74 (2), 435–452.
• Leonard, K. (2018). Classical conditioning classroom examples . Hello Motherhood. Retrieved August 31, 2021, from https://www.hellomotherhood.com/physical-education-games-for-elementary-children-6662731.html
• Markman, J. D., Soeprono, T. M., Combs, H. L., & Cosgrove, E. M. (2019). Medical student mistreatment: Understanding ‘public humiliation’. Medical Education Online , 24 (1), 1615367.
• McLean, A. N., & Christensen, J. W. (2017). The application of learning theory in horse training. Applied Animal Behaviour Science , 190 , 18–27.
• Nilsen, M., Lundin, M., Wallerstedt, C., & Pramling, N. (2021). Evolving and re-mediated activities when preschool children play analogue and digital memory games. Early Years , 41 (2–3), 232–247.
• Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex . Oxford University Press.
• Powell, R. A., Digdon, N., Harris, B., & Smithson, C. (2014). Correcting the record on Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert: Albert Barger as “Psychology’s lost boy”. American Psychologist , 69 (6), 600–611.
• Stahl, R. J. (1994). Using” think-time” and” wait-time” skillfully in the classroom . ERIC Clearinghouse.
• Yarbrough, J. L., Skinner, C. H., Lee, Y. J., & Lemmons, C. (2004). Decreasing transition times in a second grade classroom: Scientific support for the timely transitions game. Journal of Applied School Psychology , 20 (2), 85–107.

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39 6.2. Classical Conditioning

Pavlov (1849–1936) was one of the first scientists to demonstrate how animals learn through classical conditioning. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist, not a psychologist, who was studying the digestive system in dogs (Hunt, 2007). He accidentally discovered how animals learn . Pavlov was measuring the amount of saliva that dogs produced in response to various foods. However, over time, he also noticed that the dogs began to salivate not only at the taste of the food, but also at the sight of food or the food bowl, and even at the sound of the laboratory assistants’ footsteps (Pavlov, 1927). Salivating to food in the mouth is a reflex, so no learning is involved. However, dogs do not naturally salivate at the sight of an empty bowl or the sound of footsteps—they had learned to make the associations.

These unusual responses intrigued Pavlov, and he wondered what accounted for the behavior (Pavlov, 1927). He designed a series of carefully controlled experiments to see what other stimuli could cause the dogs to salivate. He was able to train the dogs to associate food with other unrelated (neutral) stimuli, such as the sound of a bell, a light, and a touch on the leg. Pavlov proposed that the dogs had two types of responses to their environment: (1) unconditioned (unlearned) responses, or reflexes, and (2) conditioned (learned) responses, which they learned through experience.

In Pavlov’s experiments, the dogs always salivated (response) when given some meat (stimulus). Thus, the meat is an example of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the dogs’ salivation is an unconditioned response (UCR). In his classical conditioning experiments, to teach the dog a new association, Pavlov presented a neutral stimulus (NS) immediately before an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and repeated the pairings many times. For example, Pavlov would ring a bell and then give the dogs the meat (Figure 6.3). The bell is a neutral stimulus (NS), because it does not naturally elicit a salivation response. Prior to conditioning, the dogs did not salivate when they just heard the bell.

By pairing the bell sound with giving the dog some meat many times, eventually, the previously neutral stimulus (the bell ringing) also began to elicit salivation. Thus, the neutral stimulus had become the conditioned stimulus (CS). The dogs began to salivate to the bell alone. The behavior caused by the conditioned stimulus is called the conditioned response (CR). Pavlov’s dogs had learned to associate the bell (CS) with being fed, and they began to salivate (CR) in anticipation of food.

Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery

Pavlov conducted many experiments to try better understand the constraints under which the dogs could be conditioned to associate a neutral stimulus with food. For example, how long did the learning last for? He found that during the acquisition (learning) phase of the studies, when he always paired the neutral stimulus with food—the dogs always salivated. But, what if he played the bell many times but never followed up with any food? As you might have guessed, over time, the dogs began to produce less and less saliva, until the conditioned response disappeared—this is called extinction. On the following day, Pavlov was quite surprised to find that when he rang the bell, but did not give any meat—the dog started to salivate again. The CR had returned—this is called spontaneous recovery. Acquisition and extinction involve the strengthening and weakening, respectively, of a learned association. Pavlov found that the CR seems to persist for a long time. He also discovered that the CR could be quickly returned to previous levels simply by reminding the dog of the association by presenting a few bell—meat pairings.

Link to Learning

View this video about Pavlov and his dogs to learn more.

Little Albert, Fear Conditioning, and Phobias

You might be wondering whether people also learn through classical conditioning? The answer is yes, they do. Before we go into several real-life applications of classical conditioning in people, we will describe a historical study with a human infant. The study was conducted by John B. Watson and his research assistant, Rosalie Rayner, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore at the beginning of the 20 th century. Watson was one of a group of psychologists in the United States who felt that the methods of introspection and psychoanalysis that were popular in Europe, were too subjective to be considered scientific. Watson believed that psychology should focus on behaviorism—that is, studies that depended on measuring outward observable behaviors (Hunt, 2007). Building on the work of Pavlov, Watson and Rayner conducted a series of studies designed to try and evoke learned fears in an 9-month-old boy, whom they referred to as Albert B. This study has been cited many times—especially as an example of an unethical study in Psychology. There has also been much speculation about the fate of “Little Albert” as the study participant came to be known.

Initially, Little Albert was shown and touched various stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, some masks, some cotton, and a white rat. He was not afraid of any of them, and so they can be considered neutral stimuli. In one study, Watson and Rayner conditioned Little Albert to associate a white rat with feeling scared. Every time they handed Albert the rat, Watson would make a loud clanging sound by hitting a hammer on a metal bar behind the little boy. The sound was very loud and scary and made Little Albert cry. Watson repeated the rat-clanging sound pairings seven times until Albert became frightened of the sight of the rat, even before the noise began. Can you figure out the UCS, CS, UCR, and CR in this study? This highly distressing study (which would not be permitted today) showed that emotions could become conditioned responses. According to Watson, Albert exhibited another phenomenon of classical conditioning—stimulus generalization. He was also scared by a somewhat similar stimulus—a Santa Claus mask with a white beard, even though he was not directly conditioned to fear it. Stimulus generalization is quite common in classical conditioning. For example, Pavlov found that once trained with the bell—meat pairings, dogs would also salivate to other similar sounds, such as a musical note on a piano. However, Pavlov then taught the dogs to recognize the difference between the two stimuli, by playing the piano note—without any meat repeatedly, and consistently ringing the bell before the meat all the other times. Thus, over time the dogs learned that the piano note was not associated with meat, but the bell was. This is called stimulus discrimination.

View scenes from this video on John Watson’s experiment in which Little Albert was conditioned to respond in fear to various furry objects. At first, you will see Albert’s initial reactions to a rat, dog and a monkey. The acquisition phase is not shown in the video. But, you will then see Albert’s reactions to the animals after conditioning, in addition to his reaction to a Santa Claus mask and a fur coat.

As you watch the video, look closely at Little Albert’s reactions and the manner in which Watson and Rayner present the stimuli before and after conditioning. Based on what you see, would you come to the same conclusions as the researchers? Why is this study considered to be unethical? What safeguards are there today to protect research participants who are babies, like Little Albert, and who are not able to give their consent to participate in a study?

According to Watson, Little Albert was also conditioned to fear a rabbit (Figure 6.5) and a dog. We do not know whether these fears persisted through his life or how strongly he feared the animals. Albert B apparently left the hospital soon after the study and was not traceable. However, there have been many inaccurate portrayals of these studies in the literature, including embellishments by Watson himself (Harris, 1979).

Some clinical psychologists have suggested that phobias— a strong and irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation can arise though classical conditioning. For example, a child who is bitten or extremely frightened by a barking dog may learn to fear other dogs too (Oar et al., 2019). Somewhat relatedly, classical conditioning has also been used to help explain the experiences of people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a severe trauma and stressor-related disorder that can develop after exposure to a serious, often life-threatening traumatic event, (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). PTSD occurs when the individual develops a strong association between the situational factors surrounding the traumatic event (e.g., sounds or smells associated with guns, bombs, etc.) and the trauma itself. The trauma is a UCS because it automatically produces a fear response (UCR). Loud noises, flashing lights, or thinking about the situation in which the trauma occurred can become conditioned stimuli (CS) and so will produce a conditioned response (CR) of feeling extremely scared (Keane, Zimering, & Caddell, 1985). Thus some of the symptoms of PTSD may be explained by classical conditioning.

Taste Aversion

In general, learning often takes a lot of practice. For example, we saw that Pavlov’s dogs needed many repetitions of the CS-UCS pairings to learn the association. However, conditioned fears can develop after a single CS-UCS pairing, if the response that is evoked is especially intense. Taste-aversion, is another example of classical conditioning that can occur after one single CS-UCS pairing. You probably have had the experience of being ill after eating something and never wanting to eat it again. Even looking at the food or thinking about it makes you feel nauseous. Typically, we only learn to associate events that are close together in time. However, with taste aversion, several hours can pass between the CS (something eaten) and the UCR (nausea, vomiting etc.) caused by something like bacteria in the food (UCS). Garcia and Koelling (1966) showed that there are some biological constraints when learning to avoid specific foods. The conditioned stimulus has to be food-related, e.g., taste or smell; other non-food stimuli (like flashing lights) will not work. They discovered this by conducting a study investigating how rats learn to avoid poisons. They put a bottle of water containing a chemical that made rats sick, in each test cage. For one group of rats, they had sweetened the water so it had a distinctive taste, and for the other group, they flashed lights and played sounds whenever the rats drank from the water bottle. They found that rats that drank the sweet water learned to avoid the flavor, but none of the rats exposed to lights and sounds learned to avoid the bottle when the lights or sounds were presented.

Taste aversion and fear conditioning are two ways in which classical conditioning can contribute to a species’ survival by helping organisms learn to avoid stimuli that pose real dangers to health and welfare (Garcia & Rusiniak, 1980; Garcia & Koelling, 1966). However, cancer patients who are treated with chemotherapy also often develop taste aversions, but these are not helpful. These aversions can occur when a healthy food is eaten just prior to a chemotherapy session, and then the patient gets sick to their stomach after the session (Holmes, 1993; Jacobsen et al., 1993; Hutton et al., 2007; Skolin et al., 2006). Chemotherapy drugs often make people sick, but one way to avoid developing taste aversions to healthy foods during treatment is to ensure that the patient eats something with relatively low nutritional value just before a session. Broberg and Bernstein (1987) used this approach by having children undergoing chemotherapy eat a strongly flavored candy just before a session. The children developed an aversion to the candy flavor, but not to the nutrition-rich food they ate before the candy.

Everyday Connection

Advertising and Associative Learning Advertising executives often apply the principles of classical conditioning in commercials and advertisements. Many of these revolve around the use of images that are overtly sexual (especially images of women). The idea is that the sexual images will act as unconditioned stimuli in that they often elicit feelings of sexual arousal. Therefore, if a product like a cologne, beer, or car is shown at the same time (or just afterwards), then the product will also become associated with feeling aroused. Of course, advertising executives understand that learning this association depends on repetition, which is why marketing campaigns often saturate us with their advertisements on television, magazines, Internet webpages, billboards, and public transport (Reichert, 2002).

What examples of these types of advertisements can you find on television, in magazines, or on the Internet? How do these advertisements make you feel about the product(s)?

Introduction to Psychology (A critical approach) Copyright © 2021 by Rose M. Spielman; Kathryn Dumper; William Jenkins; Arlene Lacombe; Marilyn Lovett; and Marion Perlmutter is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Classical Conditioning

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BEHAVIORISM

John B. Watson , shown in Figure , is considered the founder of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a school of thought that arose during the first part of the 20th century, which incorporates elements of Pavlov’s classical conditioning (Hunt, 2007). In stark contrast with Freud, who considered the reasons for behavior to be hidden in the unconscious, Watson championed the idea that all behavior can be studied as a simple stimulus-response reaction, without regard for internal processes. Watson argued that in order for psychology to become a legitimate science, it must shift its concern away from internal mental processes because mental processes cannot be seen or measured. Instead, he asserted that psychology must focus on outward observable behavior that can be measured.

Watson’s ideas were influenced by Pavlov’s work. According to Watson, human behavior, just like animal behavior, is primarily the result of conditioned responses. Whereas Pavlov’s work with dogs involved the conditioning of reflexes, Watson believed the same principles could be extended to the conditioning of human emotions (Watson, 1919). Thus began Watson’s work with his graduate student Rosalie Rayner and a baby called Little Albert. Through their experiments with Little Albert, Watson and Rayner (1920) demonstrated how fears can be conditioned.

In 1920, Watson was the chair of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University. Through his position at the university he came to meet Little Albert’s mother, Arvilla Merritte, who worked at a campus hospital (DeAngelis, 2010). Watson offered her a dollar to allow her son to be the subject of his experiments in classical conditioning. Through these experiments, Little Albert was exposed to and conditioned to fear certain things. Initially he was presented with various neutral stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool, and a white rat. He was not afraid of any of these things. Then Watson, with the help of Rayner, conditioned Little Albert to associate these stimuli with an emotion—fear. For example, Watson handed Little Albert the white rat, and Little Albert enjoyed playing with it. Then Watson made a loud sound, by striking a hammer against a metal bar hanging behind Little Albert’s head, each time Little Albert touched the rat. Little Albert was frightened by the sound—demonstrating a reflexive fear of sudden loud noises—and began to cry. Watson repeatedly paired the loud sound with the white rat. Soon Little Albert became frightened by the white rat alone. In this case, what are the UCS, CS, UCR, and CR? Days later, Little Albert demonstrated stimulus generalization—he became afraid of other furry things: a rabbit, a furry coat, and even a Santa Claus mask ( Figure ). Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert, thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses. It had been Watson’s intention to produce a phobia—a persistent, excessive fear of a specific object or situation— through conditioning alone, thus countering Freud’s view that phobias are caused by deep, hidden conflicts in the mind. However, there is no evidence that Little Albert experienced phobias in later years. Little Albert’s mother moved away, ending the experiment, and Little Albert himself died a few years later of unrelated causes. While Watson’s research provided new insight into conditioning, it would be considered unethical by today’s standards.

View scenes from John Watson’s experiment in which Little Albert was conditioned to respond in fear to furry objects.

As you watch the video, look closely at Little Albert’s reactions and the manner in which Watson and Rayner present the stimuli before and after conditioning. Based on what you see, would you come to the same conclusions as the researchers?

Advertising and Associative Learning

Advertising executives are pros 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, 2008). You may be asking yourself, does this advertising technique actually work? According to Cialdini (2008), men who viewed a car commercial that included an attractive model later rated the car as being faster, more appealing, and better designed than did men who viewed an advertisement for the same car minus the model.

Have you ever noticed how quickly advertisers cancel contracts with a famous athlete following a scandal? As far as the advertiser is concerned, that athlete is no longer associated with positive feelings; therefore, the athlete cannot be used as an unconditioned stimulus to condition the public to associate positive feelings (the unconditioned response) with their product (the conditioned stimulus).

Now that you are aware of how associative learning works, see if you can find examples of these types of advertisements on television, in magazines, or on the Internet.

Classical Conditioning: How It Works With Examples

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is learning through association and was discovered by Pavlov , a Russian physiologist. In simple terms, two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response in a person or animal.

John Watson proposed that the process of classical conditioning (based on Pavlov’s observations) was able to explain all aspects of human psychology.

If you pair a neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US) that already triggers an unconditioned response (UR) that neutral stimulus will become a conditioned stimulus (CS), triggering a conditioned response (CR) similar to the original unconditioned response.

Everything from speech to emotional responses was simply patterns of stimulus and response. Watson completely denied the existence of the mind or consciousness. Watson believed that all individual differences in behavior were due to different learning experiences.

Watson (1924, p. 104) famously said:

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and the race of his ancestors.

How Classical Conditioning Works

There are three stages of classical conditioning. At each stage, the stimuli and responses are given special scientific terms:

Stage 1: Before Conditioning:

In this stage, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) produces an unconditioned response (UCR) in an organism.

In basic terms, this means that a stimulus in the environment has produced a behavior/response that is unlearned (i.e., unconditioned) and, therefore, is a natural response that has not been taught. In this respect, no new behavior has been learned yet.

For example, a stomach virus (UCS) would produce a response of nausea (UCR). In another example, a perfume (UCS) could create a response of happiness or desire (UCR).

This stage also involves another stimulus that has no effect on a person and is called the neutral stimulus (NS). The NS could be a person, object, place, etc.

The neutral stimulus in classical conditioning does not produce a response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

Stage 2: During Conditioning:

During this stage, a stimulus which produces no response (i.e., neutral) is associated with the unconditioned stimulus, at which point it now becomes known as the conditioned stimulus (CS).

For example, a stomach virus (UCS) might be associated with eating a certain food such as chocolate (CS). Also, perfume (UCS) might be associated with a specific person (CS).

For classical conditioning to be effective, the conditioned stimulus should occur before the unconditioned stimulus, rather than after it, or during the same time. Thus, the conditioned stimulus acts as a type of signal or cue for the unconditioned stimulus.

In some cases, conditioning may take place if the NS occurs after the UCS (backward conditioning), but this normally disappears quite quickly. The most important aspect of the conditioning stimulus is the it helps the organism predict the coming of the unconditional stimulus.

Often during this stage, the UCS must be associated with the CS on a number of occasions, or trials, for learning to take place.

However, one trial learning can happen on certain occasions when it is not necessary for an association to be strengthened over time (such as being sick after food poisoning or drinking too much alcohol).

Stage 3: After Conditioning:

The conditioned stimulus (CS) has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) to create a new conditioned response (CR).

For example, a person (CS) who has been associated with nice perfume (UCS) is now found attractive (CR). Also, chocolate (CS) which was eaten before a person was sick with a virus (UCS) now produces a response of nausea (CR).

Classical Conditioning Examples

Pavlov’s dogs.

The most famous example of classical conditioning was Ivan Pavlov’s experiment with dogs , who salivated in response to a bell tone. Pavlov showed that when a bell was sounded each time the dog was fed, the dog learned to associate the sound with the presentation of the food.

He first presented the dogs with the sound of a bell; they did not salivate so this was a neutral stimulus. Then he presented them with food, they salivated. The food was an unconditioned stimulus, and salivation was an unconditioned (innate) response.

He then repeatedly presented the dogs with the sound of the bell first and then the food (pairing) after a few repetitions, the dogs salivated when they heard the sound of the bell. The bell had become the conditioned stimulus and salivation had become the conditioned response.

Fear Response

Watson & Rayner (1920) were the first psychologists to apply the principles of classical conditioning to human behavior by looking at how this learning process may explain the development of phobias.

They did this in what is now considered to be one of the most ethically dubious experiments ever conducted – the case of Little Albert . Albert B.’s mother was a wet nurse in a children’s hospital. Albert was described as ‘healthy from birth’ and ‘on the whole stolid and unemotional’.

When he was about nine months old, his reactions to various stimuli (including a white rat, burning newspapers, and a hammer striking a four-foot steel bar just behind his head) were tested.

Only the last of these frightened him, so this was designated the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and fear the unconditioned response (UCR). The other stimuli were neutral because they did not produce fear.

When Albert was just over eleven months old, the rat and the UCS were presented together: as Albert reached out to stroke the animal, Watson struck the bar behind his head.

This occurred seven times in total over the next seven weeks. By this time, the rat, the conditioned stimulus (CS), on its own frightened Albert, and fear was now a conditioned response (CR).

The CR transferred spontaneously to the rabbit, the dog, and other stimuli that had been previously neutral. Five days after conditioning, the CR produced by the rat persisted. After ten days, it was ‘much less marked’, but it was still evident a month later.

Carter and Tiffany (1999) support the cue reactivity theory, they carried out a meta-analysis reviewing 41 cue-reactivity studies that compared responses of alcoholics, cigarette smokers, cocaine addicts and heroin addicts to drug-related versus neutral stimuli.

They found that dependent individuals reacted strongly to the cues presented and reported craving and physiological arousal.

Panic Disorder

Classical conditioning is thought to play an important role in the development of Pavlov (Bouton et al., 2002).

Panic disorder often begins after an initial “conditioning episode” involving an early panic attack. The panic attack serves as an unconditioned stimulus (US) that gets paired with neutral stimuli (conditioned stimuli or CS), allowing those stimuli to later trigger anxiety and panic reactions (conditioned responses or CRs).

The panic attack US can become associated with interoceptive cues (like increased heart rate) as well as external situational cues that are present during the attack. This allows those cues to later elicit anxiety and possibly panic (CRs).

Through this conditioning process, anxiety becomes focused on the possibility of having another panic attack. This anticipatory anxiety (a CR) is seen as a key step in the development of panic disorder, as it leads to heightened vigilance and sensitivity to bodily cues that can trigger future attacks.

The presence of conditioned anxiety can serve to potentiate or exacerbate future panic attacks. Anxiety cues essentially lower the threshold for panic. This helps explain how panic disorder can spiral after the initial conditioning episode.

Evidence suggests most patients with panic disorder recall an initial panic attack or conditioning event that preceded the disorder. Prospective studies also show conditioned anxiety and panic reactions can develop after an initial panic episode.

Classical conditioning processes are believed to often occur outside of conscious awareness in panic disorder, reflecting the operation of emotional neural systems separate from declarative knowledge systems.

Cue reactivity is the theory that people associate situations (e.g., meeting with friends)/ places (e.g., pub) with the rewarding effects of nicotine, and these cues can trigger a feeling of craving (Carter & Tiffany, 1999).

These factors become smoking-related cues. Prolonged use of nicotine creates an association between these factors and smoking based on classical conditioning.

Nicotine is the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and the pleasure caused by the sudden increase in dopamine levels is the unconditioned response (UCR). Following this increase, the brain tries to lower the dopamine back to a normal level.

The stimuli that have become associated with nicotine were neutral stimuli (NS) before “learning” took place but they became conditioned stimuli (CS), with repeated pairings. They can produce the conditioned response (CR).

However, if the brain has not received nicotine, the levels of dopamine drop, and the individual experiences withdrawal symptoms therefore is more likely to feel the need to smoke in the presence of the cues that have become associated with the use of nicotine.

Classroom Learning

The implications of classical conditioning in the classroom are less important than those of operant conditioning , but there is still a need for teachers to try to make sure that students associate positive emotional experiences with learning.

If a student associates negative emotional experiences with school, then this can obviously have bad results, such as creating a school phobia.

For example, if a student is bullied at school they may learn to associate the school with fear. It could also explain why some students show a particular dislike of certain subjects that continue throughout their academic career. This could happen if a student is humiliated or punished in class by a teacher.

Principles of Classical Conditioning

Neutral stimulus.

In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus (NS) is a stimulus that initially does not evoke a response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

For example, in Pavlov’s experiment, the bell was the neutral stimulus, and only produced a response when paired with food.

Unconditioned Stimulus

Unconditioned response.

In classical conditioning, an unconditioned response is an innate response that occurs automatically when the unconditioned stimulus is presented.

Pavlov showed the existence of the unconditioned response by presenting a dog with a bowl of food and measuring its salivary secretions.

Conditioned Stimulus

Conditioned response.

In classical conditioning, the conditioned response (CR) is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus.

In Ivan Pavlov’s experiments in classical conditioning, the dog’s salivation was the conditioned response to the sound of a bell.

Acquisition

The process of pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response.

In the initial learning period, acquisition describes when an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.

In psychology, extinction refers to the gradual weakening of a conditioned response by breaking the association between the conditioned and the unconditioned stimuli.

The weakening of a conditioned response occurs when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus.

For example, when the bell repeatedly rang, and no food was presented, Pavlov’s dog gradually stopped salivating at the sound of the bell.

Spontaneous Recovery

Spontaneous recovery is a phenomenon of Pavlovian conditioning that refers to the return of a conditioned response (in a weaker form) after a period of time following extinction.

It is the reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period when the conditioned stimulus is presented alone.

For example, when Pavlov waited a few days after extinguishing the conditioned response, and then rang the bell once more, the dog salivated again.

Generalization

In psychology, generalization is the tendency to respond in the same way to stimuli similar (but not identical) to the original conditioned stimulus.

For example, in Pavlov’s experiment, if a dog is conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell, it may later salivate to a higher-pitched bell.

Discrimination

In classical conditioning, discrimination is a process through which individuals learn to differentiate among similar stimuli and respond appropriately to each one.

For example, eventually, Pavlov’s dog learns the difference between the sound of the 2 bells and no longer salivates at the sound of the non-food bell.

Higher-Order Conditioning

Higher-order conditioning is when a conditioned stimulus is paired with a new neutral stimulus to create a second conditioned stimulus. For example, a bell (CS1) is paired with food (UCS) so that the bell elicits salivation (CR). Then, a light (NS) is paired with the bell.

Eventually, the light alone will elicit salivation, even without the presence of food. This demonstrates higher-order conditioning, where the conditioned stimulus (bell) serves as an unconditioned stimulus to condition a new stimulus (light).

Critical Evaluation

Practical applications.

The principles of classical conditioning have been widely and effectively applied in fields like behavioral therapy, education, and advertising. Therapies like systematic desensitization use classical conditioning to help eliminate phobias and anxiety.

The behaviorist approach has been used in the treatment of phobias, and systematic desensitization . The individual with the phobia is taught relaxation techniques and then makes a hierarchy of fear from the least frightening to the most frightening features of the phobic object.

He then is presented with the stimuli in that order and learns to associate (classical conditioning) the stimuli with a relaxation response. This is counter-conditioning.

Explaining involuntary behaviors

Classical conditioning helps explain some reflexive or involuntary behaviors like phobias, emotional reactions, and physiological responses. The model shows how these can be acquired through experience.

The process of classical conditioning can probably account for aspects of certain other mental disorders. For example, in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sufferers tend to show classically conditioned responses to stimuli present at the time of the traumatizing event (Charney et al., 1993).

However, since not everyone exposed to the traumatic event develops PTSD, other factors must be involved, such as individual differences in people’s appraisal of events as stressors and the recovery environment, such as family and support groups.

Supported by substantial experimental evidence

There is a wealth of experimental support for basic phenomena like acquisition, extinction, generalization, and discrimination. Pavlov’s original experiments on dogs and subsequent studies have demonstrated classical conditioning in animals and humans.

There have been many laboratory demonstrations of human participants acquiring behavior through classical conditioning. It is relatively easy to classically condition and extinguish conditioned responses, such as the eye-blink and galvanic skin responses.

A strength of classical conditioning theory is that it is scientific . This is because it’s based on empirical evidence carried out by controlled experiments . For example, Pavlov (1902) showed how classical conditioning could be used to make a dog salivate to the sound of a bell.

Supporters of a reductionist approach say that it is scientific. Breaking complicated behaviors down into small parts means that they can be scientifically tested. However, some would argue that the reductionist view lacks validity . Thus, while reductionism is useful, it can lead to incomplete explanations.

Ignores biological predispositions

Organisms are biologically prepared to associate certain stimuli over others. However, classical conditioning does not sufficiently account for innate predispositions and biases.

Classical conditioning emphasizes the importance of learning from the environment, and supports nurture over nature.

However, it is limiting to describe behavior solely in terms of either nature or nurture , and attempts to do this underestimate the complexity of human behavior. It is more likely that behavior is due to an interaction between nature (biology) and nurture (environment).

Lacks explanatory power

Classical conditioning provides limited insight into the cognitive processes underlying the associations it describes.

However, applying classical conditioning to our understanding of higher mental functions, such as memory, thinking, reasoning, or problem-solving, has proved more problematic.

Even behavior therapy, one of the more successful applications of conditioning principles to human behavior, has given way to cognitive–behavior therapy (Mackintosh, 1995).

Questionable ecological validity

While lab studies support classical conditioning, some question how well it holds up in natural settings. There is debate about how automatic and inevitable classical conditioning is outside the lab.

In normal adults, the conditioning process can be overridden by instructions: simply telling participants that the unconditioned stimulus will not occur causes an instant loss of the conditioned response, which would otherwise extinguish only slowly (Davey, 1983).

Most participants in an experiment are aware of the experimenter’s contingencies (the relationship between stimuli and responses) and, in the absence of such awareness often fail to show evidence of conditioning (Brewer, 1974).

Evidence indicates that for humans to exhibit classical conditioning, they need to be consciously aware of the connection between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US). This contradicts traditional theories that humans have two separate learning systems – one conscious and one unconscious – that allow conditioning to occur without conscious awareness (Lovibond & Shanks, 2002).

There are also important differences between very young children or those with severe learning difficulties and older children and adults regarding their behavior in a variety of operant conditioning and discrimination learning experiments.

These seem largely attributable to language development (Dugdale & Lowe, 1990). This suggests that people have rather more efficient, language-based forms of learning at their disposal than just the laborious formation of associations between a conditioned stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.

Ethical concerns

The principles of classical conditioning raise ethical concerns about manipulating behavior without consent. This is especially true in advertising and politics.

• Manipulation of preferences – Classical conditioning can create positive associations with certain brands, products, or political candidates. This can manipulate preferences outside of a person’s rational thought process.
• Encouraging impulsive behaviors – Conditioning techniques may encourage behaviors like impulsive shopping, unhealthy eating, or risky financial choices by forging positive associations with these behaviors.
• Preying on vulnerabilities – Advertisers or political campaigns may exploit conditioning techniques to target and influence vulnerable demographic groups like youth, seniors, or those with mental health conditions.
• Reduction of human agency – At an extreme, the use of classical conditioning techniques reduces human beings to automata reacting predictably to stimuli. This is ethically problematic.

Deterministic theory

A final criticism of classical conditioning theory is that it is deterministic . This means it does not allow the individual any degree of free will. Accordingly, a person has no control over the reactions they have learned from classical conditioning, such as a phobia.

The deterministic approach also has important implications for psychology as a science. Scientists are interested in discovering laws that can be used to predict events.

However, by creating general laws of behavior, deterministic psychology underestimates the uniqueness of human beings and their freedom to choose their destiny.

The Role of Nature in Classical Conditioning

Behaviorists argue all learning is driven by experience, not nature. Classical conditioning exemplifies environmental influence. However, our evolutionary history predisposes us to learn some associations more readily than others. So nature also plays a role.

For example, PTSD develops in part due to strong conditioning during traumatic events. The emotions experienced during trauma lead to neural activity in the amygdala , creating strong associative learning between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli (Milad et al., 2009).

Individuals with PTSD show enhanced fear conditioning, reflected in greater amygdala reactivity to conditioned threat cues compared to trauma-exposed controls. In addition to strong initial conditioning, PTSD patients exhibit slower extinction to conditioned fear stimuli.

During extinction recall tests, PTSD patients fail to show differential skin conductance responses to extinguished versus non-extinguished cues, indicating impaired retention of fear extinction. Deficient extinction retention corresponds to reduced activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus and heightened dorsal anterior cingulate cortex response during extinction recall in PTSD patients.

In influential research on food conditioning, John Garcia found that rats easily learned to associate a taste with nausea from drugs, even if illness occurred hours later.

However, conditioning nausea to a sight or sound was much harder. This showed that conditioning does not occur equally for any stimulus pairing. Rather, evolution prepares organisms to learn some associations that aid survival more easily, like linking smells to illness.

The evolutionary significance of taste and nutrition ensures robust and resilient classical conditioning of flavor preferences, making them difficult to reverse (Hall, 2002).

Forming strong and lasting associations between flavors and nutrition aids survival by promoting the consumption of calorie-rich foods. This makes flavor conditioning very robust.

Repeated flavor-nutrition pairings in these studies lead to overlearning of the association, making it more resistant to extinction.

The learning is overtrained, context-specific, and subject to recovery effects that maintain the conditioned behavior despite extinction training.

Classical vs. operant condioning

In summary, classical conditioning is about passive stimulus-response associations, while operant conditioning is about actively connecting behaviors to consequences. Classical works on reflexes and operant on voluntary actions.

• Stimuli vs consequences : Classical conditioning focuses on associating two stimuli together. For example, pairing a bell (neutral stimulus) with food (reflex-eliciting stimulus) creates a conditioned response of salivation to the bell. Operant conditioning is about connecting behaviors with the consequences that follow. If a behavior is reinforced, it will increase. If it’s punished, it will decrease.
• Passive vs. active : In classical conditioning, the organism is passive and automatically responds to the conditioned stimulus. Operant conditioning requires the organism to perform a behavior that then gets reinforced or punished actively. The organism operates on the environment.
• Involuntary vs. voluntary : Classical conditioning works with involuntary, reflexive responses like salivation, blinking, etc. Operant conditioning shapes voluntary behaviors that are controlled by the organism, like pressing a lever.
• Association vs. reinforcement : Classical conditioning relies on associating stimuli in order to create a conditioned response. Operant conditioning depends on using reinforcement and punishment to increase or decrease voluntary behaviors.

Learning Check

• In Ivan Pavlov’s famous experiment, he rang a bell before presenting food powder to dogs. Eventually, the dogs salivated at the mere sound of the bell. Identify the neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response in Pavlov’s experiment.
• A student loves going out for pizza and beer with friends on Fridays after class. Whenever one friend texts the group about Friday plans, the student immediately feels happy and excited. The friend starts texting the group on Thursdays when she wants the student to feel happier. Explain how this is an example of classical conditioning. Identify the UCS, UCR, CS, and CR.
• A college student is traumatized after a car accident. She now feels fear every time she gets into a car. How could extinction be used to eliminate this acquired fear?
• A professor always slams their book on the lectern right before giving a pop quiz. Students now feel anxiety whenever they hear the book slam. Is this classical conditioning? If so, identify the NS, UCS, UCR, CS, and CR.
• Contrast classical conditioning and operant conditioning. How are they similar and different? Provide an original example of each type of conditioning.
• How could the principles of classical conditioning be applied to help students overcome test anxiety?
• Explain how taste aversion learning is an adaptive form of classical conditioning. Provide an original example.
• What is second-order conditioning? Give an example and identify the stimuli and responses.
• What is the role of extinction in classical conditioning? How could extinction be used in cognitive behavioral therapy for anxiety disorders?

Bouton, M. E., Mineka, S., & Barlow, D. H. (2001). A modern learning theory perspective on the etiology of panic disorder .  Psychological Review ,  108 (1), 4.

Bremner, J. D., Southwick, S. M., Johnson, D. R., Yehuda, R., & Charney, D. S. (1993). Childhood physical abuse and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans.  The American journal of psychiatry .

Brewer, W. F. (1974). There is no convincing evidence for operant or classical conditioning in adult humans.

Carter, B. L., & Tiffany, S. T. (1999). Meta‐analysis of cue‐reactivity in addiction research.  Addiction, 94 (3), 327-340.

Davey, B. (1983). Think aloud: Modeling the cognitive processes of reading comprehension.  Journal of Reading, 27 (1), 44-47.

Dugdale, N., & Lowe, C. F. (1990). Naming and stimulus equivalence.

Garcia, J., Ervin, F. R., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Learning with prolonged delay of reinforcement. Psychonomic Science, 5 (3), 121–122.

Garcia, J., Kimeldorf, D. J., & Koelling, R. A. (1955). Conditioned aversion to saccharin resulting from exposure to gamma radiation.  Science, 122 , 157–158.

Hall, G. (2022). Extinction of conditioned flavor preferences.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition .

Logan, C. A. (2002). When scientific knowledge becomes scientific discovery: The disappearance of classical conditioning before Pavlov .  Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences ,  38 (4), 393-403.

Lovibond, P. F., & Shanks, D. R. (2002). The role of awareness in Pavlovian conditioning: empirical evidence and theoretical implications.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes ,  28 (1), 3.

Milad, M. R., Pitman, R. K., Ellis, C. B., Gold, A. L., Shin, L. M., Lasko, N. B.,…Rauch, S. L. (2009). Neurobiological basis of failure to recall extinction memory in posttraumatic stress disorder.  Biological Psychiatry, 66 (12), 1075–82.

Pavlov, I. P. (1897/1902).  The work of the digestive glands . London: Griffin.

Thanellou, A., & Green, J. T. (2011). Spontaneous recovery but not reinstatement of the extinguished conditioned eyeblink response in the rat.  Behavioral Neuroscience ,  125 (4), 613.

Watson, J. B. (1913).  Psychology as the behaviorist views it .  Psychological Review, 20 , 158–177.

Watson, J.B. (1913). Psychology as the behaviorist Views It.  Psychological Review, 20 , 158-177.

Watson, J. B. (1924).  Behaviorism . New York: People’s Institute Publishing Company.

Watson, J. B., & Rayner, R. (1920).  Conditioned emotional reactions .  Journal of experimental psychology, 3 (1), 1.

6.2 Classical Conditioning

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain how classical conditioning occurs
• Summarize the processes of acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination

Does the name Ivan Pavlov ring a bell? Even if you are new to the study of psychology, chances are that you have heard of Pavlov and his famous dogs.

Pavlov (1849–1936), a Russian scientist, performed extensive research on dogs and is best known for his experiments in classical conditioning ( Figure 6.3 ). As we discussed briefly in the previous section, classical conditioning is a process by which we learn to associate stimuli and, consequently, to anticipate events.

Pavlov came to his conclusions about how learning occurs completely by accident. Pavlov was a physiologist, not a psychologist. Physiologists study the life processes of organisms, from the molecular level to the level of cells, organ systems, and entire organisms. Pavlov’s area of interest was the digestive system (Hunt, 2007). In his studies with dogs, Pavlov measured the amount of saliva produced in response to various foods. Over time, Pavlov (1927) observed that the dogs began to salivate not only at the taste of food, but also at the sight of food, at the sight of an empty food bowl, and even at the sound of the laboratory assistants' footsteps. Salivating to food in the mouth is reflexive, so no learning is involved. However, dogs don’t naturally salivate at the sight of an empty bowl or the sound of footsteps.

These unusual responses intrigued Pavlov, and he wondered what accounted for what he called the dogs' “psychic secretions” (Pavlov, 1927). To explore this phenomenon in an objective manner, Pavlov designed a series of carefully controlled experiments to see which stimuli would cause the dogs to salivate. He was able to train the dogs to salivate in response to stimuli that clearly had nothing to do with food, such as the sound of a bell, a light, and a touch on the leg. Through his experiments, Pavlov realized that an organism has two types of responses to its environment: (1) unconditioned (unlearned) responses, or reflexes, and (2) conditioned (learned) responses.

In Pavlov’s experiments, the dogs salivated each time meat powder was presented to them. The meat powder in this situation was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) : a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in an organism. The dogs’ salivation was an unconditioned response (UCR) : a natural (unlearned) reaction to a given stimulus. Before conditioning, think of the dogs’ stimulus and response like this:

In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is presented immediately before an unconditioned stimulus. Pavlov would sound a tone (like ringing a bell) and then give the dogs the meat powder ( Figure 6.4 ). The tone was the neutral stimulus (NS) , which is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response. Prior to conditioning, the dogs did not salivate when they just heard the tone because the tone had no association for the dogs.

When Pavlov paired the tone with the meat powder over and over again, the previously neutral stimulus (the tone) also began to elicit salivation from the dogs. Thus, the neutral stimulus became the conditioned stimulus (CS) , which is a stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Eventually, the dogs began to salivate to the tone alone, just as they previously had salivated at the sound of the assistants’ footsteps. The behavior caused by the conditioned stimulus is called the conditioned response (CR) . In the case of Pavlov’s dogs, they had learned to associate the tone (CS) with being fed, and they began to salivate (CR) in anticipation of food.

Link to Learning

View this video about Pavlov and his dogs to learn more.

Real World Application of Classical Conditioning

How does classical conditioning work in the real world? Consider the case of Moisha, who was diagnosed with cancer. When she received her first chemotherapy treatment, she vomited shortly after the chemicals were injected. In fact, every trip to the doctor for chemotherapy treatment shortly after the drugs were injected, she vomited. Moisha’s treatment was a success and her cancer went into remission. Now, when she visits her oncologist's office every 6 months for a check-up, she becomes nauseous. In this case, the chemotherapy drugs are the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), vomiting is the unconditioned response (UCR), the doctor’s office is the conditioned stimulus (CS) after being paired with the UCS, and nausea is the conditioned response (CR). Let's assume that the chemotherapy drugs that Moisha takes are given through a syringe injection. After entering the doctor's office, Moisha sees a syringe, and then gets her medication. In addition to the doctor's office, Moisha will learn to associate the syringe with the medication and will respond to syringes with nausea. This is an example of higher-order (or second-order) conditioning, when the conditioned stimulus (the doctor's office) serves to condition another stimulus (the syringe). It is hard to achieve anything above second-order conditioning. For example, if someone rang a bell every time Moisha received a syringe injection of chemotherapy drugs in the doctor's office, Moisha likely will never get sick in response to the bell.

Consider another example of classical conditioning. Let’s say you have a cat named Tiger, who is quite spoiled. You keep her food in a separate cabinet, and you also have a special electric can opener that you use only to open cans of cat food. For every meal, Tiger hears the distinctive sound of the electric can opener (“zzhzhz”) and then gets her food. Tiger quickly learns that when she hears “zzhzhz” she is about to get fed. What do you think Tiger does when she hears the electric can opener? She will likely get excited and run to where you are preparing her food. This is an example of classical conditioning. In this case, what are the UCS, CS, UCR, and CR?

What if the cabinet holding Tiger’s food becomes squeaky? In that case, Tiger hears “squeak” (the cabinet), “zzhzhz” (the electric can opener), and then she gets her food. Tiger will learn to get excited when she hears the “squeak” of the cabinet. Pairing a new neutral stimulus (“squeak”) with the conditioned stimulus (“zzhzhz”) is called higher-order conditioning , or second-order conditioning . This means you are using the conditioned stimulus of the can opener to condition another stimulus: the squeaky cabinet ( Figure 6.5 ). It is hard to achieve anything above second-order conditioning. For example, if you ring a bell, open the cabinet (“squeak”), use the can opener (“zzhzhz”), and then feed Tiger, Tiger will likely never get excited when hearing the bell alone.

Everyday Connection

Classical conditioning at stingray city.

Kate and her spouse recently vacationed in the Cayman Islands, and booked a boat tour to Stingray City, where they could feed and swim with the southern stingrays. The boat captain explained how the normally solitary stingrays have become accustomed to interacting with humans. About 40 years ago, people began to clean fish and conch (unconditioned stimulus) at a particular sandbar near a barrier reef, and large numbers of stingrays would swim in to eat (unconditioned response) what the people threw into the water; this continued for years. By the late 1980s, word of the large group of stingrays spread among scuba divers, who then started feeding them by hand. Over time, the southern stingrays in the area were classically conditioned much like Pavlov’s dogs. When they hear the sound of a boat engine (neutral stimulus that becomes a conditioned stimulus), they know that they will get to eat (conditioned response).

As soon as they reached Stingray City, over two dozen stingrays surrounded their tour boat. The couple slipped into the water with bags of squid, the stingrays’ favorite treat. The swarm of stingrays bumped and rubbed up against their legs like hungry cats ( Figure 6.6 ). Kate was able to feed, pet, and even kiss (for luck) these amazing creatures. Then all the squid was gone, and so were the stingrays.

Classical conditioning also applies to humans, even babies. For example, Elan buys formula in blue canisters for their six-month-old daughter, Angelina. Whenever Elan takes out a formula container, Angelina gets excited, tries to reach toward the food, and most likely salivates. Why does Angelina get excited when she sees the formula canister? What are the UCS, CS, UCR, and CR here?

So far, all of the examples have involved food, but classical conditioning extends beyond the basic need to be fed. Consider our earlier example of a dog whose owners install an invisible electric dog fence. A small electrical shock (unconditioned stimulus) elicits discomfort (unconditioned response). When the unconditioned stimulus (shock) is paired with a neutral stimulus (the edge of a yard), the dog associates the discomfort (unconditioned response) with the edge of the yard (conditioned stimulus) and stays within the set boundaries. In this example, the edge of the yard elicits fear and anxiety in the dog. Fear and anxiety are the conditioned response.

Watch this video clip from the television show, The Office , for a humorous look at conditioning in which Jim conditions Dwight to expect a breath mint every time Jim’s computer makes a specific sound.

General Processes in Classical Conditioning

Now that you know how classical conditioning works and have seen several examples, let’s take a look at some of the general processes involved. In classical conditioning, the initial period of learning is known as acquisition , when an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus. During acquisition, the neutral stimulus begins to elicit the conditioned response, and eventually the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus capable of eliciting the conditioned response by itself. Timing is important for conditioning to occur. Typically, there should only be a brief interval between presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. Depending on what is being conditioned, sometimes this interval is as little as five seconds (Chance, 2009). However, with other types of conditioning, the interval can be up to several hours.

Taste aversion is a type of conditioning in which an interval of several hours may pass between the conditioned stimulus (something ingested) and the unconditioned stimulus (nausea or illness). Here’s an example. Harry went to the carnival. He ate a lot of cotton candy and later that night was very sick and threw up. The next day, his friend offered him a piece of candy. He put it into his mouth and started to feel sick and had to spit it out. The unconditioned stimulus is eating too much cotton candy. The unconditioned response is getting sick and throwing up. The conditioned stimulus is the sugary flavor and the conditioned response is Harry feeling nauseous at the taste of sugar.

How does this occur—conditioning based on a single instance and involving an extended time lapse between the event and the negative stimulus? Research into taste aversion suggests that this response may be an evolutionary adaptation designed to help organisms quickly learn to avoid harmful foods (Garcia & Rusiniak, 1980; Garcia & Koelling, 1966). Not only may this contribute to species survival via natural selection, but it may also help us develop strategies for challenges such as helping cancer patients through the nausea induced by certain treatments (Holmes, 1993; Jacobsen et al., 1993; Hutton, Baracos, & Wismer, 2007; Skolin et al., 2006). Garcia and Koelling (1966) showed not only that taste aversions could be conditioned, but also that there were biological constraints to learning. In their study, separate groups of rats were conditioned to associate either a flavor with illness, or lights and sounds with illness. Results showed that all rats exposed to flavor-illness pairings learned to avoid the flavor, but none of the rats exposed to lights and sounds with illness learned to avoid lights or sounds. This added evidence to the idea that classical conditioning could contribute to species survival by helping organisms learn to avoid stimuli that posed real dangers to health and welfare.

Robert Rescorla demonstrated how powerfully an organism can learn to predict the UCS from the CS. Take, for example, the following two situations. Ari’s dad always has dinner on the table every day at 6:00. Soraya’s mom switches it up so that some days they eat dinner at 6:00, some days they eat at 5:00, and other days they eat at 7:00. For Ari, 6:00 reliably and consistently predicts dinner, so Ari will likely start feeling hungry every day right before 6:00, even if he's had a late snack. Soraya, on the other hand, will be less likely to associate 6:00 with dinner, since 6:00 does not always predict that dinner is coming. Rescorla, along with his colleague at Yale University, Allan Wagner, developed a mathematical formula that could be used to calculate the probability that an association would be learned given the ability of a conditioned stimulus to predict the occurrence of an unconditioned stimulus and other factors; today this is known as the Rescorla-Wagner model (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972)

Once we have established the connection between the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus, how do we break that connection and get the dog, cat, or child to stop responding? In Tiger’s case, imagine what would happen if you stopped using the electric can opener for her food and began to use it only for human food. Now, Tiger would hear the can opener, but she would not get food. In classical conditioning terms, you would be giving the conditioned stimulus, but not the unconditioned stimulus. Pavlov explored this scenario in his experiments with dogs: sounding the tone without giving the dogs the meat powder. Soon the dogs stopped responding to the tone. Extinction is the decrease in the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented with the conditioned stimulus. When presented with the conditioned stimulus alone, the dog, cat, or other organism would show a weaker and weaker response, and finally no response. In classical conditioning terms, there is a gradual weakening and disappearance of the conditioned response.

What happens when learning is not used for a while—when what was learned lies dormant? As we just discussed, Pavlov found that when he repeatedly presented the bell (conditioned stimulus) without the meat powder (unconditioned stimulus), extinction occurred; the dogs stopped salivating to the bell. However, after a couple of hours of resting from this extinction training, the dogs again began to salivate when Pavlov rang the bell. What do you think would happen with Tiger’s behavior if your electric can opener broke, and you did not use it for several months? When you finally got it fixed and started using it to open Tiger’s food again, Tiger would remember the association between the can opener and her food—she would get excited and run to the kitchen when she heard the sound. The behavior of Pavlov’s dogs and Tiger illustrates a concept Pavlov called spontaneous recovery : the return of a previously extinguished conditioned response following a rest period ( Figure 6.7 ).

Of course, these processes also apply in humans. For example, let’s say that every day when you walk to campus, an ice cream truck passes your route. Day after day, you hear the truck’s music (neutral stimulus), so you finally stop and purchase a chocolate ice cream bar. You take a bite (unconditioned stimulus) and then your mouth waters (unconditioned response). This initial period of learning is known as acquisition, when you begin to connect the neutral stimulus (the sound of the truck) and the unconditioned stimulus (the taste of the chocolate ice cream in your mouth). During acquisition, the conditioned response gets stronger and stronger through repeated pairings of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. Several days (and ice cream bars) later, you notice that your mouth begins to water (conditioned response) as soon as you hear the truck’s musical jingle—even before you bite into the ice cream bar. Then one day you head down the street. You hear the truck’s music (conditioned stimulus), and your mouth waters (conditioned response). However, when you get to the truck, you discover that they are all out of ice cream. You leave disappointed. The next few days you pass by the truck and hear the music, but don’t stop to get an ice cream bar because you’re running late for class. You begin to salivate less and less when you hear the music, until by the end of the week, your mouth no longer waters when you hear the tune. This illustrates extinction. The conditioned response weakens when only the conditioned stimulus (the sound of the truck) is presented, without being followed by the unconditioned stimulus (chocolate ice cream in the mouth). Then the weekend comes. You don’t have to go to class, so you don’t pass the truck. Monday morning arrives and you take your usual route to campus. You round the corner and hear the truck again. What do you think happens? Your mouth begins to water again. Why? After a break from conditioning, the conditioned response reappears, which indicates spontaneous recovery.

Acquisition and extinction involve the strengthening and weakening, respectively, of a learned association. Two other learning processes—stimulus discrimination and stimulus generalization—are involved in determining which stimuli will trigger learned responses. Animals (including humans) need to distinguish between stimuli—for example, between sounds that predict a threatening event and sounds that do not—so that they can respond appropriately (such as running away if the sound is threatening). When an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar, it is called stimulus discrimination . In classical conditioning terms, the organism demonstrates the conditioned response only to the conditioned stimulus. Pavlov’s dogs discriminated between the basic tone that sounded before they were fed and other tones (e.g., the doorbell), because the other sounds did not predict the arrival of food. Similarly, Tiger, the cat, discriminated between the sound of the can opener and the sound of the electric mixer. When the electric mixer is going, Tiger is not about to be fed, so she does not come running to the kitchen looking for food. In our other example, Moisha, the cancer patient, discriminated between oncologists and other types of doctors. She learned not to feel ill when visiting doctors for other types of appointments, such as her annual physical.

On the other hand, when an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the condition stimulus, it is called stimulus generalization , the opposite of stimulus discrimination. The more similar a stimulus is to the condition stimulus, the more likely the organism is to give the conditioned response. For instance, if the electric mixer sounds very similar to the electric can opener, Tiger may come running after hearing its sound. But if you do not feed her following the electric mixer sound, and you continue to feed her consistently after the electric can opener sound, she will quickly learn to discriminate between the two sounds (provided they are sufficiently dissimilar that she can tell them apart). In our other example, Moisha continued to feel ill whenever visiting other oncologists or other doctors in the same building as her oncologist.

Behaviorism

John B. Watson , shown in Figure 6.8 , is considered the founder of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a school of thought that arose during the first part of the 20th century, which incorporates elements of Pavlov’s classical conditioning (Hunt, 2007). In stark contrast with Freud, who considered the reasons for behavior to be hidden in the unconscious, Watson championed the idea that all behavior can be studied as a simple stimulus-response reaction, without regard for internal processes. Watson argued that in order for psychology to become a legitimate science, it must shift its concern away from internal mental processes because mental processes cannot be seen or measured. Instead, he asserted that psychology must focus on outward observable behavior that can be measured.

Watson’s ideas were influenced by Pavlov’s work. According to Watson, human behavior, just like animal behavior, is primarily the result of conditioned responses. Whereas Pavlov’s work with dogs involved the conditioning of reflexes, Watson believed the same principles could be extended to the conditioning of human emotions (Watson, 1919).

In 1920, while chair of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University, Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, conducted research on a baby nicknamed Little Albert. Rayner and Watson’s experiments with Little Albert demonstrated how fears can be conditioned using classical conditioning. Through these experiments, Little Albert was exposed to and conditioned to fear certain things. Initially he was presented with various neutral stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool, and a white rat. He was not afraid of any of these things. Then Watson, with the help of Rayner, conditioned Little Albert to associate these stimuli with an emotion—fear. For example, Watson handed Little Albert the white rat, and Little Albert enjoyed playing with it. Then Watson made a loud sound, by striking a hammer against a metal bar hanging behind Little Albert’s head, each time Little Albert touched the rat. Little Albert was frightened by the sound—demonstrating a reflexive fear of sudden loud noises—and began to cry. Watson repeatedly paired the loud sound with the white rat. Soon Little Albert became frightened by the white rat alone. In this case, what are the UCS, CS, UCR, and CR? Days later, Little Albert demonstrated stimulus generalization—he became afraid of other furry things: a rabbit, a furry coat, and even a Santa Claus mask ( Figure 6.9 ). Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert, thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses. It had been Watson’s intention to produce a phobia—a persistent, excessive fear of a specific object or situation— through conditioning alone, thus countering Freud’s view that phobias are caused by deep, hidden conflicts in the mind. However, there is no evidence that Little Albert experienced phobias in later years. While Watson’s research provided new insight into conditioning, it would be considered unethical by today’s standards.

View scenes from this video on John Watson’s experiment in which Little Albert was conditioned to respond in fear to furry objects to learn more.

As you watch the video, look closely at Little Albert’s reactions and the manner in which Watson and Rayner present the stimuli before and after conditioning. Based on what you see, would you come to the same conclusions as the researchers?

Advertising and Associative Learning

Advertising executives are pros 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, 2008). You may be asking yourself, does this advertising technique actually work? According to Cialdini (2008), men who viewed a car commercial that included an attractive model later rated the car as being faster, more appealing, and better designed than did men who viewed an advertisement for the same car minus the model.

Have you ever noticed how quickly advertisers cancel contracts with a famous athlete following a scandal? As far as the advertiser is concerned, that athlete is no longer associated with positive feelings; therefore, the athlete cannot be used as an unconditioned stimulus to condition the public to associate positive feelings (the unconditioned response) with their product (the conditioned stimulus).

Now that you are aware of how associative learning works, see if you can find examples of these types of advertisements on television, in magazines, or on the Internet.

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What Is Classical Conditioning in Psychology?

How It Works, Terms to Know, and Examples

• Definitions
• How It Works

Key Principles of Classical Conditioning in Psychology

What is the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning, frequently asked questions.

Discovered by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov , classical conditioning is a type of unconscious or automatic learning. This learning process creates a conditioned response through associations between an unconditioned stimulus and a neutral stimulus. In simple terms, classical conditioning involves placing a neutral stimulus before a naturally occurring reflex.

One of the best-known examples of classical conditioning is Pavlov's classic experiments with dogs. In these experiments, the neutral signal was the sound of a tone and the naturally occurring reflex was salivating in response to food. By associating the neutral stimulus (sound) with the unconditioned stimulus (food), the sound of the tone alone could produce a salivation response.

Although classical conditioning was not discovered by a psychologist, it has had a tremendous influence over the school of thought in psychology known as behaviorism . Behaviorism assumes that all learning occurs through interactions with the environment and that environment shapes behavior.

Classical Conditioning Definitions

Classical conditioning—also sometimes referred to as Pavlovian conditioning—uses a few different terms to help explain the learning process. Knowing these basics will help you understand classical conditioning.

Unconditioned Stimulus

An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus or trigger that leads to an automatic response. If a cold breeze makes you shiver, for instance, the cold breeze is an unconditioned stimulus; it produces an involuntary response (the shivering).

Neutral Stimulus

A neutral stimulus is a stimulus that doesn't initially trigger a response on its own. If you hear the sound of a fan but don't feel the breeze, for example, it wouldn't necessarily trigger a response. That would make it a neutral stimulus.

Conditioned Stimulus

A conditioned stimulus is a stimulus that was once neutral (didn't trigger a response) but now leads to a response. If you previously didn't pay attention to dogs, but then got bit by one, and now you feel fear every time you see a dog, the dog has become a conditioned stimulus.

Unconditioned Response

An unconditioned response is an automatic response or a response that occurs without thought when an unconditioned stimulus is present. If you smell your favorite food and your mouth starts watering, the watering is an unconditioned response.

Conditioned Response

A conditioned response is a learned response or a response that is created where no response existed before. Going back to the example of being bit by a dog, the fear you experience after the bite is a conditioned response.

Click Play to Learn More About Classical Conditioning

This video has been medically reviewed by Ann-Louise T. Lockhart, PsyD, ABPP .

How Classical Conditioning Works

Classical conditioning involves forming an association between two stimuli, resulting in a learned response. There are three basic phases of this process.

Phase 1: Before Conditioning

The first part of the classical conditioning process requires a naturally occurring stimulus that will automatically elicit a response. Salivating in response to the smell of food is a good example of a naturally occurring stimulus.

During this phase of the process, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) results in an unconditioned response (UCR). Presenting food (the UCS) naturally and automatically triggers a salivation response (the UCR).

At this point, there is also a neutral stimulus that produces no effect—yet. It isn't until the neutral stimulus is paired with the UCS that it will come to evoke a response.

Let's take a closer look at the two critical components of this phase of classical conditioning:

• The unconditioned stimulus is one that unconditionally, naturally, and automatically triggers a response. For example, when you smell one of your favorite foods, you may immediately feel hungry. In this example, the smell of the food is the unconditioned stimulus.
• The unconditioned response is the unlearned response that occurs naturally in response to the unconditioned stimulus. In our example, the feeling of hunger in response to the smell of food is the unconditioned response.

In the before conditioning phase, an unconditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned response. A neutral stimulus is then introduced.

Phase 2: During Conditioning

During the second phase of the classical conditioning process, the previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus. As a result of this pairing, an association between the previously neutral stimulus and the UCS is formed.

At this point, the once neutral stimulus becomes known as the conditioned stimulus (CS). The subject has now been conditioned to respond to this stimulus. The conditioned stimulus is a previously neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a conditioned response.

In our earlier example, suppose that when you smelled your favorite food, you also heard the sound of a whistle. While the whistle is unrelated to the smell of the food, if the sound of the whistle was paired multiple times with the smell, the whistle sound would eventually trigger the conditioned response. In this case, the sound of the whistle is the conditioned stimulus.

The during conditioning phase involves repeatedly pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. Eventually, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus.

Phase 3: After Conditioning

Once the association has been made between the UCS and the CS, presenting the conditioned stimulus alone will come to evoke a response—even without the unconditioned stimulus. The resulting response is known as the conditioned response (CR).

The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus. In our example, the conditioned response would be feeling hungry when you heard the sound of the whistle.

In the after conditioning phase, the conditioned stimulus alone triggers the conditioned response.

Behaviorists have described a number of different phenomena associated with classical conditioning. Some of these elements involve the initial establishment of the response while others describe the disappearance of a response. Here is a closer look at five key principles of classical conditioning.

Acquisition

Acquisition is the initial stage of learning, when a response is first established and gradually strengthened. During the acquisition phase of classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

As you may recall, an unconditioned stimulus is something that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any learning. After an association is made, the subject will begin to emit a behavior in response to the previously neutral stimulus, which is now known as a conditioned stimulus. It is at this point that we can say that the response has been acquired.

Once the response has been established, you can gradually reinforce the response to make sure the behavior is well learned.

Extinction is when the occurrences of a conditioned response decrease or disappear. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

For example, if the smell of food (the unconditioned stimulus) had been paired with the sound of a whistle (the conditioned stimulus), the sound of the whistle would eventually come to evoke the conditioned response of hunger.

However, if the smell of food were no longer paired with the whistle, eventually the conditioned response (hunger) would disappear.

Spontaneous Recovery

Sometimes a learned response can suddenly reemerge, even after a period of extinction. This is called spontaneous recovery.

For example, imagine that after training a dog to salivate to the sound of a bell, you stop reinforcing the behavior and the response becomes extinct. After a rest period during which the conditioned stimulus is not presented, you ring the bell and the animal spontaneously recovers the previously learned response.

If the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are no longer associated, extinction will return very rapidly after a spontaneous recovery.

Generalization

Stimulus generalization is the tendency for a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned. For example, if a dog has been conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, the animal may also exhibit the same response to a sound that's similar to the bell.

In John B. 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

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.

What Are Examples of Classical Conditioning?

It can be helpful to look at a few examples of how the classical conditioning process operates both in experimental and real-world settings.

Fear Response

John B. Watson's experiment with Little Albert is an example of the fear response. The child initially showed no fear of a white rat, but after the rat was paired repeatedly with loud, scary sounds, the child began to cry when the rat was present.

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).

Taste Aversions

Another example of classical conditioning is 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 nausea-causing radiation developed an aversion to flavored water after the radiation and water were presented together.

In this example, the radiation represents the unconditioned stimulus and nausea represents the unconditioned response. After the pairing of the two, the flavored water is the conditioned stimulus, while 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? Forming such associations can have survival benefits. 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 an example of 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.

Organizational Behavior

Classical conditioning can also have applications in business and marketing. For example, it can be used to help people form favorable attitudes toward products, businesses, or brands.

While there may not be a direct link between the item and the consumer response, creating this association may help motivate people to purchase certain products because they have developed a favorable opinion of them due to classical conditioning.

Operant conditioning is a learning method in which a specific behavior is associated with either a positive or negative consequence. This form of learning links voluntary actions with receiving either a reward or punishment, often to strengthen or weaken those voluntary behaviors.

Classical conditioning is a learning process focused more on involuntary behaviors, using associations with neutral stimuli to evoke a specific involuntary response.

Criticisms of Classical Conditioning

Some psychologists maintain that classical conditioning represents a reductive, mechanical explanation for some behaviors. Some other criticisms of classical conditioning center on the fact that:

• Classical conditioning does not take human individuality and free will into account
• It generally does not predict human behavior; people can form associations but still not act upon them
• Many different factors can impact the associations and outcomes
• People can choose to not act on the associations they have made through classical conditioning

However, the approach still holds great fascination for researchers and relevance in modern psychology.

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 can 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.

Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning. Pavlov was passionate about physiology, even earning gold medals for his work in this field. It was in his position as director of a physiological laboratory that he began to connect physiological research with reflex response and regulation.

Implicit memory is a memory that you can recall effortlessly or without thought. Classical conditioning uses this automatic memory to create associations with a neutral stimulus. The association is learned without conscious awareness.

Behavioral therapies use the principles of classical conditioning to help people change negative behaviors. The thought behind these therapies is that we learn from our environment. Cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy are two types of behavioral therapy.

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By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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