You may have heard of classical conditioning: the process in which an automatic, conditioned response is paired with specific stimuli, creating a behavior. Classical conditioning was discovered through experimentation by Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. In Pavlov’s experiment, he rang a bell shortly before presenting food to a group of dogs. At first, the dogs salivated at the sight of the food and had no response to the bells. However, they eventually began to salivate at the sound of the bell alone (without the presentation of the food) because they had learned to associate the sound of the bell with the food.

While you may already be familiar with Ivan Pavolv and classical conditioning, you may not be aware of the presence of classical conditioning in your day-to-day life. Here are some examples of how classical conditioning is currently influencing your behavior: 

Smartphone Notifications

Have you ever heard a buzz or tone coming from someone’s phone and instinctively reached for your own phone to check your notifications? Through classical conditioning, we have learned to associate certain notification chimes with the positive feeling of reading a message or answering a phone call. 

Music in Stores

Many retail stores play popular music – a successful strategy to influence us to buy more of their products. Companies hope that we will associate listening to our favorite songs with shopping in their stores, and we do eventually learn to associate the positive emotions we feel when listening to upbeat music with the stores themselves. 

Use of Celebrities in Advertising

Companies often use celebrities in their advertisements. In doing so, they hope that we will experience the same positive emotions toward their products as we feel when we see our favorite celebrities. By using our positive associations with these public figures to encourage us to buy their products, companies are utilizing classical conditioning.