Classical and Operant Conditioning: Procedural

Classical and Operant Conditioning: Procedural Comparison

Psychology of Learning

Classical conditioning is also known as Pavlovian conditioning after Ivan Pavlov, the Russian-born physiologist who first announced the results of studies demonstrating the psychological phenomenon of association between arbitrary stimuli and physiological response (Gerrig & Zimbardo 2005). He exposed dogs to the sound of a bell while simultaneously presenting food.

Within a short time, he was able to trigger the salivation response by ringing the bell without the food, even though that physiological response is normally triggered only by the food; before conditioning the subjects to associate the sound with the food, the ringing bell triggered no such response. Classical conditioning is very useful in training animals, because it allows trainers to trigger desired behaviors with virtually any signal once the animal has been conditioned to associate that signal with a reward like food.

Operant conditioning differs from classical conditioning primarily in that it consists of the association between the subject's behavior, first, and the response that behavior triggers, second (Carlson 2006). One of the most common experimental examples of operant conditioning consists of training pigeons to peck a lever for a food reward.

Operant conditioning provides four variations, specifically: (1) behavior that triggers a reward; (2) behavior that triggers the cessation of something rewarding; (3) behavior that triggers something unpleasant; and (4) behavior that triggers the cessation of something unpleasant (Gerrig & Zimbardo 2005). One of the most common examples of operant conditioning is the process of housetraining pets not to relieve themselves indoors, by conditioning them to associate doing so with an unpleasant scolding.