Topic > Learning through classical and operant conditioning to…

Learning can be defined as an experience that causes a relatively permanent change in an organism. There are two broad types of learning, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning deals with the association of a stimulus with a response and this was promoted by Ivan Pavlov. Operant conditioning deals with the consequences of a behavior that determine its future occurrence and was promoted by BF Skinner (Schater, Gilbert, Wegner, 2011). Every psychologist has examples of what he has developed, but many other examples can be found in everyday life. In classical conditioning there are four different associations; the unconditioned stimulus, the unconditioned response, the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response. An example of this is Pavlov's dog experiment. Pavlov noticed that when food was presented to dogs, they began to salivate. In this case, food is the unconditioned stimulus and the dog's salivation is the unconditioned response. He also noticed that every time he rang a bell the dogs didn't respond. But over time Pavlov began to ring the bell b...