Ivan Pavlov was a Russian born psychologist who did extensive experiments on dog’s saliva to see how it reacted on food. In an effort to collect saliva from these animals, Pavlov realized there was a tendency of dogs turning pro (McLeod, 2014). He named the phenomenon as psychic secretion. This scientists then changed his focus form saliva and begun to study behavior. Pavlov tried to experiment on why the dogs were portraying that behaviors started to rings bells for the dogs just before he served them with food. The aim for the bells was to stimulate them. Therefore, the bells in this context caused a conditional reflexes in the sense that they were used to make the dogs prepare for their meal. Pavlov reported that conditional reflexes can only occur when the responses become automatic after experiences where a particular condition occurs; his studies on the dogs drooling paved way for new theories about behaviors and made it possible to study humans in a new way (McLeod, 2014).
Difference between Classical Operant Conditioning
Pavlov described classical conditioning as a situation where there was a neutral stimulus (in this case the bell), he observed that on its own the bell could not make the dogs to show response- to salivate. The unconditioned stimulus in this case the foods produced an unconditioned response; in a classical conditioning if a neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are brought together then the dogs had the capability to associate the two. Upon experience, the neutral stimulus made the dogs to produce the same response as the unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned response occurs natural while the conditioned response is learnt (McLeod, 2014).
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The main difference between classical and operant conditioning is that operant conditioning relies on reinforcement while in classical conditioning there is association between stimuli and response. Much of the operant conditioning is based on voluntary behavior while classical conditioning mostly involves involuntary reflexive behavior.
Foundation of Classical and Operant Behavior
The operant conditioning was presented by B.F Skinner. Through it, Skinner was presenting an opinion that people and animals have a mind that determines their behaviors. He claimed that observable behaviors in both animals and humans are as a result of thinking rather internal mental activities. He criticized the classical conditioning by explaining it was too simplistic to effectively describe human behavior. The operant condition showed that intentional actions do have an impact on the surrounding environments (Lattal, 2013).
Skinner in his theory of operant conditioning claimed that behaviors that are reinforced tend to be repeated while the behaviors that are not reinforced they tend to die out or be extinguished. Pavlov had shown a differing opinion by where he presented the classical conditioning in which the dogs started to salivate at the site of the workers wearing lab coats, ringing bells and sight of food.
Definition of Terms
NS- This stands for neutral stimulus. in the Pavlov study the neutral stimulus was a stimulus that did not produce any specific response but rather it served to raise attention. The bells were used as neutral stimulus by Pavlov.
CR - This is the new conditioned response this came after the association of the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. This is the response that made the dogs to start drooling.
UCR stands for the unconditioned response. This is the natural response towards stimulus. For instance a perfume which is a stylus could create a response of happiness or desire.
CS stands for conditioned stimulus. This is the stimulus that leads to a specific response.
Reinforcement this is an activity that strengthens a behavior by proving rewards for the achievement. For instance, giving students gift would reinforce better performance (Lattal, 2013).
Punishment – This is an activity that is targeted at, eliminating or weakening an activity rather than increase it; the punished behavior is forgotten or suppresses. For instance failing to give youngsters money in bid to make them stop abusing drugs is a punishment activity.
Generalization - It has tendency or conditioned stimulus to evoke responses after responses has been conditioned.
Discrimination - In operant behavior discrimination could be used to mean an organism discriminates between a learned, voluntary response and an irrelevant response. For instance, through a dog will learn when it is ordered to ‘sit and not when told to “bite” (Lattal, 2013).
References
McLeod S. (2014) Classical Conditioning | Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html
Lattal, K. A. (2013). Operant conditioning: Operant conditioning chamber. Encyclopedia of psychology, Vol. 5 , 502-504. doi:10.1037/10520-214
