Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning is a theory that supports the nurture debate for phobias. It suggests that we learn phobias through bad experiences with certain objects, we associate the object with fear and generalise it to other objects, causing a phobia.

Pavlov's Dogs
Ivan Pavlov experimented on dogs to test the idea of classical conditioning. Firstly, he put a saliva tube in a dog's mouth to see if it would salivate. He then rang a bell. The dog did not salivate. Then he rang a bell and gave the dog some food. When the dog was given food, it salivated. This was part of the 'conditioning' process. He did this repeatedly, multiple times. Then he just rang the bell and the dog salivated even though there wasn't any food. The dog had learned to associate the bell and the food. It had been conditioned to salivate to the bell. This was called classical or Pavlovian conditioning. It works on humans, and many other behaviours.

Here is the general pattern:
 * 1) Neutral Stimulus: The bell has no effect at the start
 * 2) Unconditioned Stimulus: The food naturally produces salivation
 * 3) Unconditioned Response: The natural salivation to food
 * 4) Conditioned Stimulus: The bell after the association process
 * 5) Conditioned Response: The dog salivates when the bell rings

Little Albert
Watson and Rayner used classical conditioning to make Albert frightened of a white rat. This shows that the environment can produce phobias. At first Albert was not scared when a white rate entered the room. Then each time a white rat was shown to Albert, a loud noise was made with a steel bar behind him. The noise frightened him and he associated his fear with the rat. Albert’s fear generalised to other white, fluffy things such as cotton wool and a Father Christmas mask.

This is called classical conditioning. Albert build up an association between the white rate and the loud noise. The white rat was the neutral stimulus, and the loud noise was the unconditioned stimulus. Then Albert generalized his fear of white rats to other fluffy white objects, because they are similar to the conditioned stimulus. He developed a phobia.

General Summary

 * 1) NS = the stimulus produces no response at first
 * 2) US = the harm
 * 3) UR = the harm produces natural fear
 * 4) CS = the stimulus after the harm and the stimulus have been presented together
 * 5) CR = the stimulus produces fear for the harm

Please look at the diagrams provided on the right, you will need it to answer and explain exam questions about classical conditioning!

Key Terminology
Classical Conditioning:  A learning process which builds up an association between two stimuli through repeated pairings

Association: The link between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus that makes the neutral stimulus cause the same response.

Generalisation: When a conditioned response is produced to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Phobia: An intense fear that prevents ‘normal living’ in some way.

Extinction: The loss of a classically conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is repeated many times without the unconditioned stimulus.

Neutral stimulus: stimulus produces no response

Unconditioned stimulus: stimulus produced natural response

Unconditioned response: response is natural, uncontrolled

Conditioned stimulus: stimulus after the association process

Conditioned response: response after conditioning