The Behaviourist Approach - Classical Conditioning

Q: Three Main Aspects of Behaviourism & Classical Conditioning

**Watson’s** Behaviourist manifesto (1913) identifies three main aspects of behaviourism. The principles of classical conditioning are: generalisation, discrimination, extinction, spontaneous recovery, higher order conditioning.

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Three Main Aspects of Behaviourism & Classical Conditioning

Watson’s Behaviourist manifesto (1913) identifies three main aspects of behaviourism. The principles of classical conditioning are: generalisation, discrimination, extinction, spontaneous recovery, higher order conditioning.

Watson’s Behaviourist manifesto

According to Watson’s Behaviourist manifesto (1913):
- Behaviour is a response to environmental stimulus;
- Behaviourism is only concerned with observable stimulus-response behaviours;
- This can be studied in a systematic, objective way.

Principles of classical conditioning

Generalisation: this occurs when a conditioned response (CR) is elicited by a stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus (CS).
Discrimination: this occurs when the person or animal learns to differentiate between similar conditioned stimuli (CS) and a conditioned response no longer occurs to a similar stimulus.
Extinction: when the conditioned stimulus (CS) is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), eventually the conditioned response (CR) will cease.

Principles of classical conditioning 2

Spontaneous recovery: after extinction, it only takes a few pairings of the unconditioned (UCS) and conditioned stimulus (CS) for the conditioned response (CR) to reappear.
Higher order conditioning: this is also known as second order conditioning. This occurs when a previously neutral stimulus elicits a conditioned response.
- E.g. in Pavlov’s experiment, a tone (CS) was paired with food (UCS) to elicit salivation (UCR). If the tone was then paired with a light, and salivation occurred, that would be an example of higher order conditioning.

Evaluation of conditioning

Strengths
- Scientific approach - objective.
- Practical applications e.g. therapies.
Limitations
- Mechanistic view of human behaviour – ignores cognition and free will.
- Environmental determinism.
- Ethics of animal experiments.
- Ethics of some therapeutic approaches to changing behaviour.
- Ignores biology (nature/nurture).

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov is a Russian physiologist who performed a series of very famous experiments on dogs to investigate classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a process by which we learn to associate stimuli and to anticipate events.

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936) was a physiologist, not a psychologist.
His area of interest was the digestive system.
Pavlov came to his conclusions about how learning happens completely by accident.

Salivating dogs

In his studies with dogs, Pavlov surgically implanted tubes inside dogs’ cheeks to collect saliva and measured the amount of saliva produced in response to various foods.
Over time, Pavlov observed that the dogs began to salivate not only at the taste of food, but also at the sight of food, at the sight of an empty food bowl, and even at the sound of the laboratory assistants' footsteps.

The nature of salivation

Salivating to food in the mouth is reflexive, so no learning is involved.
But dogs don’t naturally salivate at the sight of an empty bowl or the sound of footsteps.
These unusual responses intrigued Pavlov, and he wondered what accounted for what he called the dogs' “psychic secretions”.

Investigations into salivation

To explore which stimuli would cause the dogs to salivate in an objective manner, Pavlov designed a series of carefully controlled experiments.
He was able to train the dogs to salivate in response to stimuli that clearly had nothing to do with food, such as the sound of a bell, a light, and a touch on the leg.

Types of responses

Through his experiments, Pavlov realised that an organism has two types of responses to its environment:
- Unconditioned (unlearned) responses, or reflexes.
- Conditioned (learned) responses.

Stimuli and Responses

There are a number of stimuli and responses that can be unconditioned or conditioned. The process of creating conditioned stimuli and responses across repeated trials is known as classical conditioning.

Unconditioned response

An unconditioned response (UCR), also known as a reflex is a natural reaction to a stimulus.
An example UCR is a dog's salivation response when they see food.
They were not taught to salivate when they see food - the response is natural.

Unconditioned stimulus

An unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is a stimulus that causes a reflexive response (a UCR) in an organism.
An example UCS is food that causes dogs to salivate when it's presented to them.

Neutral stimulus

A neutral stimulus (NS) is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response.
An example of this is a tone that would ordinarily be ignored by a dog as it has no association.
But an NS can be paired with a UCS to cause a response.

Conditioned stimulus

A conditioned stimulus (CS) is a stimulus that elicits a response after it has been paired with a UCS.
A CS was once a NS but has become a CS from having an association with a stimulus that elicits a UCR.

Conditioned response

A behaviour caused by the conditioned stimulus is called a conditioned response (CR).
An example of a CR is a salivation response when a dog hears a tone - they anticipate being fed through learning that a tone indicates that they are about to be fed.