Classical Conditioning Flashcards
What is classical conditioning?
It is learning by association and refers to the conditioning of reflexes and involves associating a new stimulus with an natural (innate) bodily reflex
What was Pavlov’s research?
His research was on dogs and how they salivate when they hear the foot steps of the man who feeds them. He stated that the dogs unconditioned stimulus was the food and the unconditioned response was the dog salivating. He learned that the neutral stimulus (footsteps) and the food pared with it would make the footsteps a conditioned stimulus as the dog associates the noise for the food coming. This means that the conditioned stimulus would cause the dog to salivate, making it the conditioned response.
What was the contribution of Pavlov’s work?
- Non observable behavior could be studied this way
- Therapeutic techniques have been successful in eliminating maladaptive behaviors
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What are the positives of CC?
Most research is done in laboratories and is therefore reliable due to the high level of control possible.
CC has been used in developing treatments for mental illnesses such as systematics desensitisation to treat phobias, which has been found to be very effective
