Classical and Operant Conditioning

Classical and Operant Conditioning

1. Classical Conditioning

1.1.   The discovering of the classical Condition.

Nearly by accident Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) discovered in 1927 the classical conditioning.
He was doing a research on digestion what begins when salvia mixes with food in the mouth. I. Pavlov tried to find out how much salvia a dog produce when he gives him food. During the experiment he noticed, that the salivation began even before the dog tasted the food. It was only necessary that the dog saw the food, that he started drooling.

He wondered and started a new experiment to find out how it worked.

1.2. Classical Conditioning on Animals.

Ivan Pavlov most famous experiment on animals is the ‘Pavlov respond Experiment’ were he discovered the classical conditioning.
In the examination a dog was attached to different equipments were a researcher was sitting behind a one-way mirror to see the response of the dog attending to food.

Before the conditioning they rang the ball and there was no response.
When they showed the dog food he salivated.
During the conditioning the explorers rang the bell followed by showing the dog food. Salivation came up.
After the conditioning they rang the bell and because only of hearing the bell, the dog started salivating.

→ Chart Pg. 165   (“Understanding Psychology” Morris & Maisto)


1.3. Classical Conditioning on Human Beings

There are two different ways of the classical Conditioning. It can be used for negative and positive conditioning.

Negative Conditioning showed in an experiment:

We have a four-year-old boy sitting in an empty room. In the room is a tool to play with, in this experiment a teddy bear. Every time when the boy wants to play with it, he gets a little electric shock. The boy learned, that when he touches the teddy, that he will get hurt.
When you show him the teddy bear he will start to cry because he associates the bear with pain. This is a negative conditioning.

On the other hand we can...