Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning
Psychology is a broad field that strives to explain human behavior. Classical conditioning is a part of psychology that can be used to explain almost all aspects of how humans behave. Classical conditioning is based on the observations from Pavlov’s experiment. Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physician credited with experiments that led to the concept of classical conditioning using a dog and a bell. Pavlov’s experiment involved hooking a dog to some form of mechanism that enabled measuring of the dog’s saliva as the bell rings before the dog is fed with a meat powder. The process continues to a point whereby the dog could salivate upon hearing the sound of the bell. There are four components of classical conditioning. Unconditioned stimulus is natural and instinctive eliciting the response which is targeted. Conditioned stimulus, on the other hand, causes the targeted response. Conditioned and unconditioned responses are almost similar, but their difference is that unconditioned response occurs due to unconditioned stimulus whereas conditioned response is as a result of conditioned stimulus.
From Pavlov’s experiment, we can derive examples of the four components of classical conditioning. Meat powder is an example of unconditional stimulus in Pavlov’s experiment whereas the sound of the bell is conditioned stimulus. Conditioned and unconditioned responses are the saliva.
Classical conditioning is applicable in everyday life. Learning is an important aspect of everyday life.

It is how people develop cognition, memory and learn to associate different elements in the environment. Everyday behavior is influenced by classical conditioning. Nervous responses such as fear, anxiety, joy, excitement or sadness are as a result of classical conditioning. The environment shapes people behavior through classical conditioning. People learn to obey order or rules since any act of disobedience or breaking the law is associated with pain such as punishment or social discrimination. The consequences of an act can be either unconditioned or unconditioned response.
Classical conditioning would impact my future career in a great way. As a psychologist, the concepts of classical conditioning would be helpful in identifying the best way to condition a stimulus or a response to achieve the desired human behavior or performance. For a person to behave in the desired way, more positive conditioned stimuli or response needs emphasis. Classical conditioning heavily borrows from B.F skinner’s Reinforcement theory. When you reinforce the more positive behavior by increasing rewards on their attainment, the behavior would be more prevalent, or its chances of being repeated or incorporated become more. Changing society and the way it thinks would be my priority as I prepare for a career in psychology and therefore the concepts from classical conditioning and Reinforcement Theory would help me attain my career objectives.
Classical conditioning is an important topic today because of the increasing misconceptions and stereotypes. The advancement in technology has led to the spread of stereotypes to a large number of people. Cultural dynamism is also increasing the formation of negative opinion about other cultures or people. Terrorism today is associated with Muslims and the Islam religion. This is because the mass media has conditioned the minds of the people to think that way. Every time an act of terror occurs, people would automatically think Islam or a Muslim must be involved. Classical Conditioning and Reinforcement theory would be imperative in bringing change to people’s mind.
My learning of Classical conditioning has thought me that human behavior is affected by the environment. Things which are more prevalent in the environment have a direct impact on how humans behave. Human behavior is flexible, and it can be changed to suit a particular purpose. Through classical conditioning, I am now able to understand why there are radicalization and religious extremism. People are driven by the result which has been conditioned by others. This could be the allure of money, fame or power. These also act as reinforcers in a negative way, and they can be changed to bring positive results.