The psychology school of thought known as Behaviorism states, that all types of learning whether regarding humans or animals take place when they interact with the environment. This theory is based on two postulations i.e. firstly; the environment is responsible for initiating changes in the behavior and secondly taking into account someone’s opinion, passion, and way of thinking while explaining behavior is futile.
Classical conditioning is the theory that is associated with the branch of behavioral learning theories. There is a deep connection between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. The process of learning which occurs due to repeated associations between both stimuli is known as classical conditioning. Unconditional or primary stimuli are known as involuntary action generators because proper training is not required to initiate action for this kind of stimuli. Examples of such stimuli are food, pain, or other instinctive stimuli. Animals do not have to learn about these stimuli and they only need to learn that how to react (Lavond & Steinmetz, 2003)
On the other hand, a secondary or conditional stimulus occurs when animals give respond to something only after learning. These are connected with a primary stimulus. For instance, in Pavlov’s experiment, the dogs were not familiar with the sound of the bell and hence it intended noting for them. However, when the sound of the bell was connected with the food i.e. when a dog would hear the sound of a ringing bell, he would get food and it automatically became conditioned stimuli. A secondary stimulus regards the likes and dislikes of the learner because a learner act in response to secondary stimulus respecting his likes and dislikes. For instance, for students, these are school grades and pocket money. Students who don’t care about their career and future might ignore the importance of grade A but those students who are concerned and committed to their studies, struggle hard to get good grades.
Classical conditioning theory is used by trainers, especially animal trainers because it is very difficult to train animals without motivating them or diverting their attention towards their desired reward, which they might get after the completion of a task. So it is used to change their behavior indirectly according to our desired outcome. Classical conditioning plays a vital role in training animals because trainers can easily associate things as a reward with the desired outcome. Coaches or trainers identify this practice; a viaduct as it associates time at which the animal executes a preferred task with the time when it gets the desired reward. Dolphin and whale trainers use different methods such as whistles and clickers.
Here is a table that shows how a dog is trained to sit by using the classical conditioning approach.
Table: Example of Classical Conditioning procedure
By giving them food to the dog just after putting a carpet in front of him means that putting carpet is a condition and he would be getting food after sitting on the carpet. So whenever the trainer would place carpet in front of this trained dog, the dog would sit and wait for the food. So this was an example of classical conditioning.
John Watson, who was the founder of the theory of behaviorism, suggested other applications of this theory. He demonstrated the theory and its application by using a child called Albert and a white rat in the experiment. In the beginning, the child reacted normally and didn’t notice the presence of a rat, moreover, after some time the observers paired the rat with a nerve-wracking noise. After a while, experimenters observed symptoms of stress and fear on the child’s face and in his behavior. Not only that whenever any small, white, or furry object was bought close to the kid, he showed unease no matter whether it was a rabbit, a dog, or even hair on someone’s head.
Steinmetz 2000 mentioned the formula for finding out the equation for the classical conditioning theory model is;
And
In the classical conditioning theory replacement of one stimulus with other takes place which results in different behavior. Operant conditioning takes place when a specific behavior is associated with certain stimuli and it is then reinforced and becomes common (Wanger, 2005). This means that one performs to amend a definite stimulus that initiates a certain action and the second one is accountable for amending or refining a certain action.
To understand the difference between these two theories further, we will take the example of Pavlov’s dog where the classical conditioning theory is concerned. In the case of dogs, we can observe this when the smell of the food is replaced with the sound of bells. In short, it leads to the dogs starting to salivate as soon as they heard a bell. On the other hand, Skinner’s cat or the operant theory shows that how a stimulus initiates an action in natural behavior. Moreover, training the cat to get out by pressing the lever is observed as a refinement of behavior. The cat was not given any training and regarding how to get out or escape. Cat discovered that on its own without wasting time when trying to find an escape route.
Reference List
Lavond, D., & Steinmetz, J. (2003). Handbook of classical conditioning. Canada: Springer.
Steinmetz, J. (2000). Eyeblink classical conditioning. Canada: Springer.
Wanger, K. (2005). Introduction to classical conditioning. Web.