Classical conditioning is a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired: a response which is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. The first stimuli is named conditioned stimulus, the second stimuli is named unconditioned stimulus and the response before conditioning is called unconditioned response, after conditioning is called conditioned response.
I have a personal story related to classical conditioning. I have a niece who is 10 years younger than me, and as her aunt, I always bring her gifts whenever I go back home, and the gifts are mostly snacks because she likes snacks. But instead of giving her the treats directly when I see her, I usually hug and tickle her first and then give her them. Her response when I give her the gifts is running in circles and laughing happily. And after a few years doing this, I noticed something interesting–I unconsciously applied classical conditioning to my niece. Last year when I went back home, I brought my niece treats as usual, but in order to prove that classical conditioning actually worked on my niece, I did things differently. So I hugged and tickled my niece like before, but this time, I didn’t take out the treats immediately, and a funny thing happened–my niece is already running in circles and laughing, as if she received the treats, when in reality, she didn’t even see a sign of the treats yet. Of course, I gave her the treats in the end because I’m a good aunt and she is still happy about it.
In my story, classical conditioning was applied to my niece. And in this case, the unconditioned stimulus is the treats, conditioned stimulus is my hug, and the unconditioned and conditioned responses are both running in circles laughing. My niece showed the conditioned response when only the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus. Classical conditioning is everywhere in our lives but we just didn’t pay enough attention to it, and it’s fun to discover small things related to psychology concepts.
Reference:
Wede, J. (n.d.). Psychology.