Question

Create an example of classical conditioning. Identify the unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response. Explain how these elements work together to create classical conditioning.

Answer 1

Classical conditioning is a type of learning that had a major enfluence on the school of thought in psychology known as behaviorism. It is a process that occurs through association between environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.

Behaviorism is based on some assumptions that are :

• Learning occurs through interaction with environment.
• The environment shapes behaviour.

Classical conditioning involves forming an association between two stimuli resulting in a learned response. There are three phases of this process :

• Phase A - Before conditioning.
• Phase B - During conditioning.
• Phase C - After conditioning.

One of the most famous examples of classical conditioning was John B Watson's experiment in which a fear response was conditioned in boy known as little albert. The child intially showed no fear of a white rat, but after the rat was paired repeatedly with loud, scary sound, the child would cry when the rat was present. The child's fear also generalized to other fuzzy white objects.

Prior to the conditioning, white rat was a neutral stimulus. Here, the conditioned stimulus was the loud, clanging sounds and the unconditioned response was the fear response created by the noise. By repeatedly pairing the rat with the white rat came to evoke the fear response. This example illustrates how phobias can form through classical conditioning.

Answer 2

Carl is often scared when he goes through an intersection ever since he saw a deadly car crash there once before