Categories: Psychology

Classical Conditioning

&NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad1" id&equals;"quads-ad1" style&equals;"float&colon;left&semi;margin&colon;0px 0px 0px 0&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In 1913&comma; an American psychologist&comma; who happens to mark a milestone in the history of psychology&comma; is a founder of Behaviorism- a School of Thought&period; John B&period; Watson was of the view that a human behavior was not the result of internal mental processes&period; Also&comma; claimed that the process of Classical conditioning could explain all the aspects of a human behavior&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Now let’s have a little insight about how the idea of this Classical conditioning popped up&period; Like many great scientific discoveries&comma; classical conditioning&comma; also known as Pavlovian conditioning&comma; was also discovered accidently&period; In1890&comma; a Russian Physiologist Ivan Pavlov couldn’t help not notice an apparent bilious behavior of his dog&comma; who would start salivating every time Pavlov entered the room&comma; even without food&period; A decade later&comma; after strenuous study&comma; Pavlov took off with an idea that there are some reflexes present that does not need to be acquired by learning&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In the dog’s case&comma; it is food which is the unconditional stimulus&comma; on the contrary&comma; the process of salivation is the unconditional response- in a behaviorists terms&period;<br &sol;>John Watson&comma; completely denying the existence of consciousness or mind&comma; was of the view that everything from speech to mental responses were patterns of Stimulus and Response&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<blockquote>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify"><strong>He famously said<&sol;strong><br &sol;>&&num;8220&semi;Give me a dozen healthy infants&comma; well-formed&comma; and my own specified world to bring them up in and I&&num;8217&semi;ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select &&num;8211&semi; doctor&comma; lawyer&comma; artist&comma; merchant-chief and&comma; yes&comma; even beggar-man and thief&comma; regardless of his talents&comma; penchants&comma; tendencies&comma; abilities&comma; vocations and the race of his ancestors” &lpar;Watson&comma; 1924&comma; p&period; 104&rpar;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;blockquote>&NewLine;<h3>The Dog Experiment<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">To prove the existence of an unconditioned response&comma; Pavlov conducted an experiment with the dog&period; He presented the dog with food and checked for salivation&period; However&comma; Pavlov noticed that Dog has developed an association with the Lab assistant who would take food for him on regular basis&period; He was sure of it because he observed that the same response would be triggered every time the lab assistant went into the room even without food&period; That was the moment he realized he had discovered something un-usual and decided to devote the rest of his career studying this type of learning&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">The little part where the dog associated the lab assistant with food&comma; was considered to be a learned behavior by Pavlov&period; He called it a learned behavior because he further noticed that dog would often do it&comma; and at a certain point they would not&comma; showing a change in their behavior&period; He believed that this kind of change in the behavior must be an outcome of learning&period;&lbrack;sky&rsqb;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In a behaviorist terms&comma; the lab assistant was actually a neutral stimulus&period; He is called neutral because he has no response&period; Now what happened here was that the dog associated the neutral stimulus &lpar;Lab assistant&rpar; with unconditional stimulus &lpar;Food&rpar;&period; Every time Neutral Stimulus &lpar;Lab assistant&rpar; came around&comma; it triggered an unconditional response &lpar;Salivation&rpar;&period; Also&comma; once the neutral stimulus has become associated with the unconditioned stimulus&comma; it becomes a conditioned stimulus &lpar;CS&rpar;&period; The conditioned response &lpar;CR&rpar; is the response to the conditioned stimulus&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad2" id&equals;"quads-ad2" style&equals;"float&colon;none&semi;margin&colon;0px 0 0px 0&semi;text-align&colon;center&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&NewLine;<h3>Phobias<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">Ivan Pavlov worked mainly on animals to prove the validity of classical conditioning&period; The question that if it applied to humans too&comma; was answered by Watson and Rayner in 1920&comma; who proved that it did by conducting an experiment<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In this experiment&comma; little Albert&comma; a 9-month-old infant&comma; was tested for his reactions to numerous stimuli such as a white rat&comma; a rabbit&comma; a monkey and various masks to which Albert show know response&comma; and remained unemotional and impassive&period; Conversely&comma; when a hammer was struck onto a steel bar behind his head&comma; that startled Albert who burst into tears&comma; this caused him to be afraid of the hammer and he loud noise made him cry&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">A few months later&comma; Albert was shown a rat immediately after which a hammer was struck against the steel bar behind his head&comma; this was repeated a few times over every time making Albert cry&period; This caused him to associate the loud noise of the hammer hitting the steel bar with the rat&period; So a few days later&comma; every time the rat was shown to Albert he experienced all the fear and started crying even when the hammer was not struck against the steel bar&period; Albert would try to crawl away each time he was shown the rat&period; <&sol;p>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">This experiment not only helped Watson and Rayner prove how the classical conditioning also applied to humans&comma; but also came to a conclusion that you could create phobias in humans with classical conditioning&period; Phobia is an irrational fear&comma; the one which is out of proportion to the danger&period; However&comma; over the next few weeks it was observed that little Albert’s fear was a lot less marked&period; He fear faded away&period; This slowly dying out of a learned response is called extinction&period; However the influence remained for over a month&period; Over the years&comma; Classical conditioning have been studied to its far of extends&comma; and the more it was studied the more benefits were learnt of its implications&period; For instance&comma; we can show the importance of classical conditioning from a very contemporary example&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h3>Classical Conditioning in the Classroom<&sol;h3>&NewLine;<p align&equals;"justify">In classrooms&comma; particularly&comma; it is important for a teacher or a professor to make sure the students are attentive and gaining the most from the lessons delivered&period; This is up to a teacher to make sure that students to do&period; For this purpose they try to associate positive and efficient experiences with learning&period; Because if a student has a negative emotional association with learning in the class&comma; like if a student is bullied&comma; he would associate fear with school&comma; he would obviously perform bad in school&comma; have poor results or even form a phobia of schools&period; Or if a student is punished or humiliated by a teacher in the class&comma; he might develop a disliking for that particular subject or period&period; And this kind of disliking could sojourn for the rest of their academic phase&period; &NewLine;<&excl;-- WP QUADS Content Ad Plugin v&period; 2&period;0&period;95 -->&NewLine;<div class&equals;"quads-location quads-ad3" id&equals;"quads-ad3" style&equals;"float&colon;none&semi;margin&colon;0px&semi;">&NewLine;&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&NewLine;

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