PAVLOV (1927)
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING EXPLAINS LEARNING BY ASSOCIATION

This theory was developed by Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist who was the first Russian to win the Nobel Prize (for Medicine). It is sometimes called “Pavlovian” Conditioning after him. Pavlov carried out his original research on dogs but the conclusions were applied to humans by American behaviourist psychologists, notably John B. Watson.

This theory is significant for students in other ways:

• It shows how scientific research proceeds. Pavlov’s discoveries about animal behaviour were generalised to humans based on evolutionary theory (that humans and other animals learn through similar mechanisms). This in turn led to the Behaviourist school in Psychology.
• It illustrates features of Learning Theory, since it studies behaviour as a response to external stimuli without taking into account cognitions
• It ties in to your Key Question in Learning Theory, since it helps explain anorexia
• It is important for you to understand how Pavlov’s 1927 study into dogs learning through association established this theory
  

LEARNING BY ASSOCIATION

A stimulus is something in our environment that affects us; a response is our reaction to a stimulus.

We all have a natural tendency to react to certain stimuli, for example to start when we hear a loud, unexpected noise or laugh when tickled. These are unconditioned responses (UCR) and the things that produce them are unconditioned stimuli (UCS). This sort of stimulus-response doesn’t require a psychological explanation since it’s based on biology.

However, when a neutral stimulus (NS) that normally doesn’t affect us is paired over a period of time with a UCS, the two become associated. This is learning by association, also known as conditioning.

After conditioning, the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) because it produces the same reaction from us that the UCS used to produce. There is something artificial about this learned response to a CS, which is why it is known as a conditioned response (CR).
 

• Conditioned responses don’t feel artificial to the person doing them. Only if you know the history of how they were learned, can you tell they are conditioned and not unconditioned (natural) responses.
• Conditioned stimuli gradually lose their association with the original unconditioned stimulus and they revert back to being a neutral stimulus again. This process is called extinction and it can take a long time.
• Once an association is formed, it is never truly forgotten. Even after extinction, a CR can reappear. This is termed spontaneous recovery.
• Once a CR is formed, there is a tendency for it to appear in response to things other than the original CS. Quite often, people who have learned by association will carry on making associations. This is called stimulus generalisation and it means that stimuli that are similar to the CS will produce the CR.
  

Stimulus generalisation is important because it enables us to apply what we've learned in one context to other, similar contexts. Extinction can be prevented by pairing the CS with the old UCS again on future occasions, in order to strengthen the association.

RESEARCH INTO CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
The findings of studies

Pavlov’s famous experiments with dogs are essential to understanding Classical Conditioning.

The Classic Study in the Learning Approach is Watson & Rayner’s (1920) “Baby Albert” study, which uses Classical Conditioning to produce a phobia in a baby boy. This shows that Classical Conditioning explains how humans learn too.

However, other research into Classical Conditioning has been less successful. David H. Barlow (1966) carried out a series of procedures in the USA to ‘cure’ homosexuals of their same-sex attraction. The process involved using stomach-churning descriptions and images to produce an urge to vomit – this is the UCS producing a UCR. Then images of attractive same-sex partners were paired with the disgusting imagery. This associating of UCS and NS produced a CS instead;  a sense of nausea and disgust (CR) was felt whenever the men were presented with a same-sex partner (CS). Stimulus generalisation meant this CR was generalised to any same-sex partner. Up to 50% of the young men treated in this way seemed to change their sexual orientation.

Martin Seligman (1993) reports how these studies generated great excitement in America and prompted many doctors and judges to recommend using conditioning to change the behaviour of homosexuals and paedophiles (homosexuality was illegal at the time many people confused it with paedophilia). However, the conclusions were not valid. Most of the men who stopped their homosexual activities after the treatment were bisexuals; among men with exclusive homosexual orientation, the results showed very little success. However, many patients reported feeling traumatised and violated by the treatment, especially when other researchers used electric shocks instead of disgusting imagery as their UCS.

This sad story indicates that Classical Conditioning does not have the same effect on humans as on dogs. Some psychologists suggest that characteristics like homosexuality are ‘essential’ behaviours that cannot be greatly modified by conditioning. It is also possible that cognitions are involved in human sexual attraction – feelings like ‘love’ for example – so it is not just a matter of conditioning people not to behave in a particular way; you need to take into account how they feel.

APPLYING CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (AO2)
CONDITIONING in the real world

Aversion Therapy

This is a therapy for dysfunctional behaviour based on Classical Conditioning. It is no longer used on homosexuals but is still applied to alcoholics. If they agree to it, an alcoholic may be treated with a drug called Antabuse which reacts with alcohol in the blood stream; the drug causes the drinker to feel violent nausea. Although alcohol is a UCS that normally produces a pleasant UCR (getting drunk), if it is paired with Antabuse it becomes a CS instead and leads to a CR (feeling sick at the sight or thought of alcohol).

The famous footballer George Best was treated with Antabuse – twice. However, he persevered with his drinking and forced himself to ignore the nausea. He died of organ failure brought on by alcohol poisoning in 2005. This is another example of human willpower and personality overcoming conditioning.

Aversion therapy today tends to use aversive imagery rather than drugs or electric shocks. This is known as covert sensitisation and a study by Kraft & Kraft (2005) found aversive imagery to be effective in curing addictions, including a nail biter, a cannabis smoker, an over-eater, a cigarette smoker, a chocoholic and an alcoholic.

You can see this at work in the old parenting technique of making sure a child who was caught smoking never smokes again by forcing them to smoke an entire packet in one sitting. The smoking was a NS but it gets associated with a UCR (nausea) until the sight or smell of cigarettes becomes a CS and produces a nauseous CR.

Phobias & Systematic Desensitisation

This therapy is a bit more subtle than aversion therapy. It is often used to treat phobias. The therapy treats phobias as conditioned responses (CR) to a conditioned stimulus (CS) and tries to turn the terrifying creature, object or situation back into a neutral stimulus (NS) that produces no response.

A phobia is an irrational fear that might be learned when a NS (say, a spider) is paired with a UCS that is naturally frightening, like a thunderstorm. The spider becomes a CS and produces the same CR as the thunderstorm – fright. Stimulus generalisation means that the CR is extended to all spiders, not just the one you saw in your room when the thunderstorm woke you. It may even be generalised to any sort of “creepy crawlie”.

Systematic desensitisation involves introducing the phobia-sufferer to the thing they fear, but at a safe distance – first a drawing of one at a distance, then a drawing that is held in the hand, then a photo, then a film clip, then the real thing. These stages are in a “hierarchy” that the sufferer themselves draws up.

At each stage the sufferer learns to associate the spider with a harmless, relaxed experience. This is counterconditioning, because the relaxation cancels out the anxiety the phobia produces.

Eventually, the sufferer can pick up and handle a spider and learn that this too is harmless and relaxing. The spider is now a NS again.

EVALUATING CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (AO3)
CODA

Credibility

There’s a lot of research in support of the Classical Conditioning, including the studies by Pavlov (1927) and Watson & Rayner (1920) that you will meet in this course. This research isn’t just from the start of the 20th century; it continues to the present day, with brain scanning revealing “reward centres” in the brain that activate when pleasant associations are formed.

Moreover, a lot of this research is strictly scientific, being carried out on animals in lab conditions or using brain imaging techniques like MRI. Because the theory only looks at behaviours (rather than cognitions), every step in the conditioning process is observable. This adds to the credibility of the theory, since you can see it happen with your own eyes.

Objections

Although research on dogs and other animals shows conditioning taking place, generalising the conclusions to human learning is not so clear-cut. For one thing, there are other learning theories – Operant Conditioning and Social Learning Theory – and it is usually difficult to tell whether one or the other is largely responsible when something is learned. For example, even when associations are formed, the person is usually being rewarded or punished at the same time: George Best learned to associate drinking with nausea, but drinking was still rewarding for him because it was pleasurable.

The theory focuses entirely on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate. It is possible some people are born with predispositions towards behaviours, rather than learning them through conditioning. Many critics of Barlow’s ‘gay cures’ would say that people are born with their sexual orientation; they don’t learn it and cannot be expected to un-learn it.

The theory also focuses entirely on behaviours and ignores cognitions. Cognitions are thought-processes and include things like personality, willpower and motivation. Sigmund Freud argued that a lot of self-destructive behaviour comes from hidden thought-processes in the unconscious mind and are not learned and cannot be un-learned so easily.

Differences

Classical Conditioning has many similarities with Operant Conditioning. Both were based on lab studies done on animals – dogs for Pavlov, rats for Skinner. Both then generalise the conclusions about learning to human beings. Both of them have produced effective treatments for problem behaviours – aversion therapy and systematic desensitisation for Classical Conditioning, token economy programmes for Operant Conditioning.

However, Classical Conditioning explains the acquisition of involuntary behaviours, things that are “knee jerk reactions”. However, Operant Conditioning explains how behaviours are learned by their consequences and better explains more deliberate, voluntary behaviours.

Social Learning Theory is quite different from Classical Conditioning. For one thing, it includes cognitions as well as behaviours. Classical Conditioning only looks at how behaviours get paired and associated. SLT looks at how we draw conclusions from seeing role models in action (“If they did that and got away with it, I can too!”) so there’s a big role played by thought-processes. This makes SLT rather less scientific than Classical Conditioning, but it is better at explaining how we learn complicated behaviours like talking in “chunks” by observing and imitating, rather than having to make associating and generalise, which is a much slower and more uncertain process. SLT is a much better explanation of things like how children learn to talk or why youngsters turn to crime.

Applications

Classical Conditioning has always had huge applications for therapy, especially the treatment of “irrational” or “instinctive” problems like phobias and addictions.

Aversion therapy works by associating a dysfunctional behaviour (like drinking) with a UCR (like vomiting) to produce a new CS. If successful, the CS will produce a nauseous CR whenever drink is present. This sort of therapy works best when the patient is willing and wants the therapy to succeed. Many of Barlow’s gay men where in prison, because their homosexuality was then a crime, and they were forced to undergo the treatment.

Systematic desensitisation works by associating a troubling CR (like a phobia) with the CS (like a spider) in a relaxing, safe environment. Gradually, the patient stops associating fear with the spider. The spider goes back to being a NS, producing no reaction. This is extinction.

EXEMPLAR ESSAY
How to write a 8-mark answer

Evaluate Classical Conditioning as a theory of learning. (8 marks)

• A 8-mark “evaluate” question awards 4 marks for AO1 (Describe) and 4 marks for AO3 (Evaluate).

Description
Ivan Pavlov proposed that learning is done through association. Repeated association leads to conditioning in his studies involving dogs.
In conditioning, a neutral stimulus (NS) is paired with a unconditioned stimulus (UCS) until it turns into a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The CS produces a Conditioned Response (CR).
Not only that, but the CR can be generalised to other stimuli that are similar to the CS. This is stimulus generalisation and it explains things like phobias.
Classical Conditioning is on the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate because it suggests that all behaviour comes from learned associations rather than innate predispositions.

Evaluation
Classical Conditioning is supported by lab research on animals, such as Pavlov’s studies on dogs that learned to salivate when a bell rang.
However, this research may not generalise to humans, who have more complex behaviour. Attempts to condition homosexuals out of their sexual orientation have failed, according to Seligman (1993).
The theory also ignores the nature side of the nature/nurture debate, since people may be born with certain essential behaviours (like homosexuality) which cannot be un-learned.
Classical Conditioning might also be too simplistic since it ignores motives and personality. George Best was able to keep drinking in spite of aversion therapy, which suggests that there is more to human behaviour than just stimulus-response.

Conclusion
Classical Conditioning explains a lot of involuntary behaviour and it has led to therapies like aversion therapy that have helped people with addictions. However, it’s not a complete explanation of why people behave the way that they do.

Apply Classical Conditioning.

• A 4-mark “apply” question awards 4 marks for AO2 (Application) and gives you a piece of stimulus material.

Trevor thinks his dog loves Eastenders. He says that he feeds the dog just as the TV show is starting. Now, whenever Trevor’s dog hears the Eastenders theme tune on an advert, it gets excited and starts running in circles.

Using your knowledge of Classical Conditioning, explain why Trevor is wrong. (4 marks)

Trevor’s dog has been conditioned to react this way. Eastenders is a neutral stimulus (NS) to dogs – they don’t respond to it normally.
Trevor has been pairing the Eastenders theme with an Unconditioned Stimulus (US) which is the dog’s mealtime and the dog has made an association between the two.
Over time, the NS has become a Conditioned Stimulus (CS). The dog’s excitement is a Conditioned Response (CR).
Because of stimulus generalisation, the dog behaves with the CR whenever it hears a snippet of the Eastenders theme, even if it isn’t the start of the show.