Classical Conditioning Essay

665 Words3 Pages
Classical conditioning was actually discovered by accident by Ivan Pavlov. At first, he was trying to study the digestion system of dogs (Heffner, 2004). Then he noticed that dogs would start to salivate before being fed. The dogs even began to drool when the person feeding them came in the room. Once Pavlov saw this, he stopped studying dog digestion and decided study what is now known as classical conditioning (Heffner, 2004). Pavlov started out pairing the ringing of a bell with food whenever he would feed the dogs. As a result, the dogs began to drool whenever they heard the sound of the bell. When the dogs salivate in the presents of food, the two are called an unconditioned stimulus (food) and an unconditioned response (salivating) (Heffner, 2004). With classical conditioning the conditioned stimulus is the tone, the reinforcement is the unconditioned stimulus, and the unconditioned response is the salivation (Olson; Hergenhahn, 2009). Classical conditioning is a theory that suggests that humans learn through association. We develop certain responses to stimuli that do not occur naturally. There are many ways that classical conditioning can be applied to real life situations. The main thing I would apply classical conditioning to would be parenting. When dealing with children, you have to teach them to associate certain behaviors with certain consequences. The consequences can be either positive or negative. Depending on the type of response you as the parent desire, you associate certain actions with either positive consequences or negative consequences. In addition, you should make your home situation as close to real world experiences as possible. In order for them to think something is good for them, they have to keep seeing the rewards. For example, I have a child and I want them to do their homework. So in order for them to do their homework, I would
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