Assignment: Conditioning

Assignment: Conditioning

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Psychologists like B. F. Skinner have studied how we can use operant conditioning to change the behavior of people and animals. Drawing on your personal experience, choose a person or animal whose behavior you want to change. (You may select your own behavior for this question if you wish.) How could you use operant conditioning to change the behavior of this person or animal?

In a multi-paragraph essay, describe your plan to change this behavior. Be sure to mention what type of reinforcer and reinforcement schedule you would use and explain why you made those particular choices. Include information from class materials, readings, and research on operant conditioning to support your discussion.

Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) refers to a  procedure in which a biologically potent  (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell). It also refers to the learning process that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g. salivation) that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus.

lassical conditioning was first studied in detail by  through  with dogs and published in 1897. It began when the Russian physiologist observed – while he was studying  – that the dogs serving as his subjects drooled at him when they were being served meat.

Together with , classical conditioning became the foundation of , a school of  which was dominant in the mid-20th century and is still an important influence on the practice of  and the study of animal behavior. Classical conditioning is a basic learning process, and its  are now beginning to be understood. Though it is sometimes hard to distinguish classical conditioning from other forms of associative learning (e.g. instrumental learning and human associative memory), a number of observations differentiate them, especially the contingencies whereby learning occurs.