Classical Conditioning

Ever wonder why you may reach for your phone when you hear someone else’s phone go off that happens to have the same ringtone as you? Or how cats are trained not to jump on furniture? Classical conditioning is the answer. Classical conditioning is the way in which behavior is taught through association.

How Conditioning Works

For example, a cat naturally doesn’t care about a couch and will climb on it all day if it wanted to. The couch in this case would be the Neutral Stimulus (NS) because it elicits no natural response from the cat. Anybody who knows anything about cats knows cats hate getting prayed with water. The spray bottle is the Unconditioned Stimulus (US) because it naturally elicits an Unconditioned Response (UR)  which is running away. Now imagine if we begin to consistently spray the cat with water every time it jumps up on couch. Eventually, the cat will associate the couch with getting sprayed with water and won’t go on the couch anymore. The NS that the cat didn’t care about has now become the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) because we taught it to associate a harmless couch with the feeling of getting sprayed. This aversion to the couch out of fear is the Conditioned Response (CR) we were looking for.

Over time, the cat may Discriminate the couch with other pieces of furniture and refrain from jumping on those too. Consistency is key as well, however. After some time, the cat may quit responding to the association and this conditioning would experience Extinction. In this case, it’s important to condition again to elicit Spontaneous Recovery.

Conditioning for Educators

Can you identify what the NS, US, UR, CS, and CR is?

When I personally was a kid growing up in the classroom, my peers and I had so much energy and would constantly talk while the teacher was talking. My teacher found a way to safely condition us to stop talking at inappropriate times by turning off the lights and lecturing us. Every time our teacher would turn off the lights, she would explain how disrespectful we were being towards our fellow classmates and to us and that made us feel extremely embarrassed and quiet. After days of doing that, whenever we got too noisy, as soon as the lights got turned off, we all immediately stopped talking and then knew we were being disrespectful.

• • • • • NS: The lights
        • US: Getting lectured
        • UR: Feeling embarrassed
        • CS: The lights
        • CR: Feeling embarrassed

Why this is Important

Classical conditioning can be an easy and non-invasive way to elicit or discourage a specific behavior from students. In my past experience, my teacher successfully gained control back of the noisy classroom until we understood that talking out of turn is disrespectful and we shouldn’t do that. Teachers everywhere should take advantage of such a great psychology technique to indirectly better their students!