Types of Conditioning Behavior

• classical conditioning
• operant conditioning

Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning)

• method of learning through association

• 2 stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response

  • Unconditioned Stimuli (US) - dog food
  • Neutral Stimuli (NS) - whistle, before conditioning
  • Conditioned Stimuli (CS) - whistle, after conditioning

• before agent conditioning:

  • Unconditioned Stimuli has some effect on agent
  • Neutral Stimuli does not have the same effect on agent

• after agent conditioning:

  • Neutral Stimuli becomes Conditioned Stimuli having the same effect on agent

• John Watson proposed that Classical Conditioning was able to explain all aspects of human psychology. He famously said:

“Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations and the race of his ancestors” (Watson, 1924, p. 104).

• John Watson’s Little Albert Experiment video

Operant Conditioning

• method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior

• individual/agent makes associations between behavior and consequence (either: reward or punishment)

• B.F. Skinner is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning

• 3 types of responses, or operant, that can follow behavior:

  • neutral operants - responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated
  • reinforcers - responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behavior being repeated
  • punishers - responses from the environment that decrease the probability of a behavior being repeated

Classical Conditioning vs Operant Conditioning