Classical Conditioning
The Classical Conditioning Model
Classical Conditioning in Human Learning Common Phenomena in Classical Conditioning
Cognition in Classical Conditioning
Changing Undesirable Conditioned Responses Educational Implications of Behaviorist Assumptions
and Classical Conditioning Summary
Basic Assumptions of Behaviorism
As I mentioned in Chapter 1 , early research on learning relied heavily on introspection , a method
in which people were asked to “look” inside their heads and describe what they were thinking. But in the early 1900s, some psychologists argued that such self-reflections were highly subjec- tive and not necessarily accurate—a contention substantiated by later researchers (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Zuriff, 1985). Beginning with the efforts of the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov (to be described shortly) and the work of American psychologist Edward Thorndike (to be described in Chapter 4 ), a more objective approach to the study of learning emerged. These researchers looked primarily at behavior —something they could easily see and objectively
describe and measure—and so the behaviorist movement was born.
Behaviorists haven’t always agreed on the specific processes that account for learning. Yet many of them have historically shared certain basic assumptions:
◆ Principles of learning should apply equally to different behaviors and to a variety of animal species .
Behaviorists typically assume that human beings and other animals learn in similar ways—an assumption known as equipotentiality . As a result of this assumption, behaviorists frequently apply to human learning the principles they have derived primarily from research with such animals as rats and pigeons. In their discussions of learning, they often use the term organism to refer generically to a member of any species, human and nonhuman alike.
◆ Learning processes can be studied most objectively when the focus of study is on stimuli and responses . Behaviorists believe that psychologists must study learning through objective
scientific inquiry, in much the same way that chemists and physicists study phenomena in the physical world. By focusing on two things they can observe and measure—more specifically, by focusing on stimuli in the environment and responses that organisms make to those stimuli— psychologists can maintain this objectivity. Behaviorist principles of learning often describe a relationship between a stimulus ( S ) and a response ( R ); hence, behaviorism is sometimes called S–R psychology .
◆ Internal processes are largely excluded from scientific study . Many behaviorists believe that
because we can’t directly observe and measure internal mental processes (e.g., thoughts and motives), we should exclude these processes from research investigations, as well as from expla- nations of how learning occurs (e.g., Kimble, 2000; J. B. Watson, 1925). These behaviorists describe an organism as a black box , with stimuli impinging on the box and responses emerging
from it but with the things going on inside it remaining a mystery. 1
Not all behaviorists take a strict black-box perspective, however. Some insist that factors within the organism (O), such as motivation and the strength of stimulus–response associations, are also important in understanding learning and behavior (e.g., Hull, 1943, 1952). These neobehaviorist theorists are sometimes called S–O–R (stimulus–organism–response) theorists rather than S–R theorists. Especially in recent decades, some behaviorists have asserted that they can fully understand both human and animal behavior only when they consider cognitive pro- cesses as well as environmental events (e.g., R. M. Church, 1993; DeGrandpre, 2000; Rachlin, 1991; Wasserman, 1993).
◆ Learning involves a behavior change . In Chapter 1 , I defined learning as involving a long-
term change in mental representations or associations. In contrast, behaviorists have traditionally defined learning as a change in behavior . And after all, we can determine that learning has
occurred only when we see it reflected in someone’s actions.
As behaviorists have increasingly brought cognitive factors into the picture, many have backed off from this behavior-based definition of learning. Instead, they treat learning and behavior as separate, albeit related, entities. A number of psychologists have suggested that many behaviorist laws are more appropriately applied to an understanding of what influences the
performance of learned behaviors, rather than what influences learning itself (e.g., R. Brown &
Herrnstein, 1975; W. K. Estes, 1969; Herrnstein, 1977; B. Schwartz & Reisberg, 1991).
◆ Organisms are born as blank slates . Historically, many behaviorists have argued that, aside
from certain species-specific instincts (e.g., nest-building in birds) and biologically based disabilities (e.g., mental illness in human beings), organisms aren’t born with predispositions to behave in particular ways. Instead, they enter the world as a “blank slate” (or, in Latin, tabula rasa) on
which environmental experiences gradually “write.” Because each organism has a unique set of environmental experiences, so, too, will it acquire its own unique set of behaviors.
◆ Learning is largely the result of environmental events . Rather than use the term learning ,
behaviorists often speak of conditioning : An organism is conditioned by environmental events.
The passive form of this verb connotes many behaviorists’ belief that because learning is the result of one’s experiences, learning happens to an organism in a way that is often beyond the
organism’s control.
1 This idea that the study of human behavior and learning should focus exclusively on stimuli and responses is sometimes called radical behaviorism .
Some early behaviorists, such as B. F. Skinner, were determinists : They proposed that if we were to have complete knowledge of an organism’s past experiences and present environmental circumstances, as well as knowledge of any predispositions the organism might inherit to behave in certain ways, we would be able to predict the organism’s next response with total accuracy. Many contemporary behaviorists don’t think in such a deterministic manner: In their view, any organism’s behavior reflects a certain degree of variability that stimulus–response associations and genetics alone can’t explain (R. Epstein, 1991; Rachlin, 1991). Looking at how organisms have previously learned to respond to different stimuli can certainly help us understand why people and other animals currently behave as they do, but we’ll never be able to predict their actions with 100% certainty.
◆ The most useful theories tend to be parsimonious ones . According to behaviorists, we should
explain the learning of all behaviors, from the most simple to the most complex, by as few learn- ing principles as possible. This assumption reflects a preference for parsimony (conciseness) in explaining learning and behavior. We’ll see an example of such parsimony in the first behaviorist theory we explore: classical conditioning.