Classical Conditioning In Classroom.

3267 Words14 Pages
Page 1 of 6 THE APPLICATIONS OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING When we talk of learning we usually think of something related to the classroom, such as English or Math. However, Psychologists refer to learning as a relatively permanent change in behavior as a result of experience'. Learning is a fundamental process in all animals and the higher up the evolutionary scale the animal, the more important is the ability to learn. All animals need to adapt their behavior in order to fit in with the environment and to adapt to changing circumstances in order to survive. Much of our behavior consists of learned responses to simple signals. Can all behavior be analyzed in the same way? Some psychologists believe that behavior is the sum of many simple stimulus-response connections. However there are other psychologists who think that stimulus-response is too simplistic and that even simple responses to stimuli require the processing of a vast amount of information. The Behaviorists are a group of psychologists who focus on these stimulus-response connections, the two most famous being Watson and Skinner. Behaviorism arose because there was dissatisfaction with approaches in psychology that involved 'unscientific, techniques such as introspection and dealt with immeasurable aspects of behavior such as the role of the unconscious mind. Behaviorists try to explain the causes of behavior by studying only those behaviors that can be observed and measured. They leave focused their efforts on two types of learning processes known as classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical Conditioning( Classical conditioning is a form of learning that incorporates the body's natural physical response to stimuli. This is learning by association. A Russian physiologist called Ivan Pavlov, studied salivation in dogs as part of
Open Document