Classical conditioning

Introduction

• Behaviourism is an example of a learning approach in psychology
• It emphasises the role of the environment and experience in the learning of behaviours
• Behaviourism describes only observable behaviour and uses methods such as laboratory experiments to gain control of variables and look for cause and effect relationships
• Two examples of behaviourism are classical conditioning and operant conditioning

Before conditioning

• An unconditioned stimulus (food) leads to an unconditioned response (salivation)
• A neutral stimulus (ringing bell) produces no response

During and after conditioning

• During:
• Pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus will create an association with the unconditioned response
• After:
• After regular pairing, the neutral stimulus will become a conditioned stimulus and will lead to its own conditioned

Evaluation

• +Most research is done in laboratories and is therefore reliable due to the high level of control possible
• +Classical conditioning has been used in developing treatments for mental illness such as systematic desensitisation to treat phobias, which has been found to be very effective
• -Classical conditioning ignores the role of biology in behaviour. Instead, it suggests everything stems from stimulus-response learning
• -Classical conditioning does not account for the role of cognition/thought in behaviour as this is not observable