Classical and Operant Conditioning
Classical and operant conditioning are two imperative ideas essential in psychology. While both conditions have to do with learning, the methods are fairly different. In order to comprehend how each of these behavior alteration methods can be used, it is also crucial to understand how classical conditioning and operant conditioning differ from one another.
Classical Conditioning was invented by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist. It contains placing a neutral signal before a reflex, and focuses on instinctive, automatic behaviors. In the video shown and described in class we saw a very famous experiment by Ivan Pavlov which noticed that dogs begin to salivate in reply to a tone after a sound had been frequently matching with the presentation of food. Pavlov rapidly understood that this was a learned response and set out to further examination of the conditioning process. Classical conditioning contains combining a previously neutral stimulus (such as the sound of a bell) with an unconditioned stimulus (the taste of food). This unconditioned stimulus naturally and automatically activates salivating as a response to the food, which is known as the unconditioned response. After connecting the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, the sound of the bell alone will start to arouse salivating as a response. The sound of the bell is now known as the conditioned stimulus and salivating in response to the bell is known as the conditioned response. Operant conditioning was first defined by B. F. Skinner, an American psychologist. It involves strengthening or punishing after a behavior and focuses on strengthening or weakening focuses on using either fortifying or sentencing to increase or decrease a behavior. Through this procedure, a reminder is formed between the behavior and the consequences for that behavior. An example of this condition is,