The behaviourist perspective believes that our behaviour is the result of operant or classical conditioning; both of these explain behaviour as being a direct result of learning. Classical conditioning was developed by Ivan Pavlov. He conducted an experiment that involved dogs. Because dogs salivate, this is an involuntary reflexive response to the sight of smell of food. Pavlov set up an experiment where he introduced a bell at meal times; this was the neutral stimulus (NS).
Classical conditioning is made using two stimuli. in the experiment Pavlov used sound of a bell a as a neutral stimuli and dog food as unconditioned stimuli which causes the dog to salivate. Pavlov presented the dogs with a ringing bell followed by food. The food elicited salivation, and after repeated bell-food pairings the bell also caused the dogs to salivate. In this experiment, the unconditioned stimulus is the dog food as it produces an unconditioned response, saliva.
Pavlov landed upon this theory by mistake whilst carrying out a different unrelated experiment with dogs. Nevertheless, he used this as an added advantage and modified his experiment with the dogs to prove his newly founded theory. Initially the dogs would salivate (unconditional response) when presented with food (neutral stimulus) and no response were obtained from the animals when presented with food (unconditional stimulus) were sounded on its own. For a period of time thereafter, the bell was sounded at the same time when the food was presented to the dogs. Eventually, the sound of the bell (now a conditioned response) was sufficient to make the dogs salivate (now conditioned response) in the absent of food.
He noticed that the dog began to salivate when someone entered the room with a bowl of food, but before the dog had eaten the food. Since salivation is a reflex response, this seemed unusual. Pavlov decided that the dog was salivating because it had learned to associate the person with food. He then developed a theory. Food automatically led to the salivation response, since this response had not been learned, he called this an unconditioned response, which is a response that regularly occurs when an unconditioned stimulus is presented.
The definition of extinction and how it relates to both classical conditioning and operant conditioning will also be discussed. We will start with phobias and classical conditioning, followed by addiction and operant conditioning. Then consider extinction and its definition. First I will distinguish between classical and operant conditioning. According to Kowalski and Westen (2011) classical conditioning is the result of an unconditioned reflex, like salivation, when an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is introduced, like food, with a conditioned stimulus, like ringing a bell when food is brought.
The genetics and cognition are deemed unimportant in determine behaviours. The three main theories are: 1- Classical conditioning 2- Operant conditioning 3- Social learning Classical Conditioning Pavlov was the theorist and what he said was that humans learn behaviours through association with environmental stimulus. Pavlov was studying the digestive system that dogs have; he noticed that the dog would salivate when the assistant entered the room with food. The dog was salivating as it had learnt to associate the assistant with food. Food automatically leads to salivation – this is a natural response it’s called unconditioned response, the response that is not learned.
Pavlov then realised he could reverse these effects if he sounded the bell and did not give the dogs their food. However after a while the dogs stopped salivating when they heard the bell. The dogs associated the bell with food so they salivated. Normally a dog would not salivate to a bowl or a bell, but the dogs associated these stimuli with food so they gave that response. Some could argue that Pavlov’s findings cannot be transferred to classical conditioning in the wider world as this experiment was only on dogs, and we don’t know whether there was some other factor which could have been altering Pavlov’s results, for example the breed of dog could have been affecting the amount of salivation and not the stimulus.
The experiment showed that once the dogs became accustomed to hearing a particular noise at mealtime, they began to salivate automatically whenever they heard it. The dogs would salivate when they heard the noise whether they were given food or not. This experiment showed that behaviors are reactions to stimuli. This theory also relies on the belief that positive and negative reinforcement can be used to train people and animals to behave a certain way. Behaviorists seek to discover how environmental stimuli control behavior.
He measured the amount they salivated when they were given food, yet, he realised that they didn’t have to be given food for them to being salivating as soon as they realised that they were going to be given food. Pavlov soon realised that the dogs had learnt to associate the sound of the experimenters step with receiving food; this process was identified as classical conditioning. B.F. Skinner looked at Operant conditioning; Skinner experimented
Ivan Pavlov (1849 - 1936) studied salivating dogs and conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated conditioning. The experiments showed how the stimulus of the bell was a conditioned stimulus when the dog associated with the arrival of food (an unconditioned stimulus) as it rang the bell the dog salivated so they were ready to eat (the unconditioned response). Over a period, whenever the dogs heard any bell ring (a conditioned stimulus); they began to salivate regardless of whether they were fed or not (a condition response). In the conditioning process is reinforcement, which will embed the learning response so that it becomes internalised and so the individual behaves in that way without thinking about it. After time the dog stop salivating at the bell sound when no food was given so this proves this response can be unlearnt.