Pavlov's Conditioning Experiment (Research Paper Sample)

Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiment
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Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiment
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Psychologist particularly interested in studying how digestion takes place in mammals. In his Conditioning experiment, he conducted a comprehensive study on digestion processes in dogs. Pavlov started his experiment by studying what triggers dogs to salivate. Although this could have been an easy study because mammals usually produce saliva to assist them in breaking down food, Pavlov noted that drooling in dogs had a much more effect than he thought (Nevid, 2009).
Since the research assistants who fed the dogs wore white lab coats, Pavlov noted that whenever the dogs saw a lab coat, even if there was no meat in sight, they began drooling. Based on this observation, he suggested that salvation was a learned response because the dogs salivated whenever they saw a lab coat, and as a result, they had associated the white lab coats with food (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). Out of curiosity, Pavlov initiated an experiment in which a bell was rung whenever the dogs were being fed. In the beginning of the experiment, the bell was a neutral stimulus because the dogs did not respond to it by salivating. The experiment was repeated several times with the bell being rung whenever food was presented to the dogs (Coon, 2006).
As conditioning tool place, the dogs started to salivate on hearing the sound of the bell, even if there was no food in sight. Through association, the sound of the bell, which previously did not have any effect on the dogs’ salivation, began to trigger the same response as food. Pavlov termed the food as an unconditioned stimulus (US), because it could evoke salvation (which he called unconditioned response), naturally. On the other hand, the sound of the bell, which started out as a neutral stimulus (NS) became a conditioned stimulus (CS) after the experiment was repeated several times. In addition, when Pavlov’s bell sounded, the dog was learning a new response (salvation). Thus, upon the completion of the experiment, salvation had become a conditioned response (CR) (Coon & Mitterer, 2015).
Through his experiment, Pavlov was able to develop the first experimental model of learning ‘Classical Conditioning’. As a result, classical conditioning model is sometimes termed as Pavlovian conditioning (Coon & Mitterer, 2015). Over years, psychologists have shown that classical conditioning can be applied in various settings in order to ensure outstanding results are realized. For instance, in education, classical conditioning can be adopted in the classroom to create a pleasant environment, which ensures students have a positive attitude toward learning. Through creation of positive situations and associations in the class, students can effectively overcome difficulties such as school phobia, low self-esteem, and anxiety, which interfere with the learning process. Classical condition can also be used to make students to like difficulty subjects by presenting them in a non-threatening manner.
Watson and Raynor were interested in Pavlov’s research and as a result, they conducted an experiment to show that emotional reactions can also be classically conditioned in human beings. In their experiment, the participant was a little boy commonly known as ‘little Albert’. They exposed the boy to a number of stimuli including a rabbit, monkey, burning newspapers, and a white rat. Initially, the boy did not show any sign of fear of all the objects. They repeated the experiment using a rat, and Watson making a loud noise by hitting a metal pipe. Naturally, the boy cried whenever he heard the loud noise. After repeatedly paring the loud noise with the rat, the boy began to cry on seeing the rat, even if no loud noise was made. From this experiment, it was revealed that emotional conditions can not only be conditioned in animals, but also in human beings (Powell, Symbaluk & Honey, 2012).
B.F. Skinner was also influenced and motivated by Pavlov’s work, as he developed the Operant Conditioning theory. Through operant conditioning, people make an association between behavior and a particular consequence. In other words, operant conditioning modifies behavior by using positive and negative reinforcements. Positive reinforcers include all the favorable things given to an individual after portraying a desired b...