How did Pavlov create experimental neurosis in his research animals, and how did he explain differential susceptibility to experimental neurosis?
Pavlov did much of his experimental research on animals, particularly on dogs looking into the digestive processes. Other than this, he succeeded in creating an experimental neurosis. The explanation of this was given by a small activity based experiment. Supposedly, showing a circle to a dog, followed by food and the second part of the activity involved showing an ellipse not followed by food.
The results according to Pavlov will be elicitation of salivation on showing a circle but no such response in case of ellipse. On making the circle more elliptical, when ultimately circle and ellipse both look alike, there will be a conflict in the excitatory and inhibitory tendencies and there will be a breakdown in the animal’s behavior. This was called experimental neurosis as it was conducted in the laboratory.
This neurotic behavior had various forms, when experimented in various animals. Few dogs became highly irritable while responding to the conflict and barked violently, tearing at apparatus using their teeth. Some other animals became depressed. Such differential susceptibility was observed in different animals. This led to the classification of animals in terms of nervous systems.