A look at psychological conditioning.

Conditioning is learning associations between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses. There are two types of conditioning. Classical conditioning is defined as when your learning occurs when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to yield a conditioned response. It is also known as Pavlovian conditioning, or respondent conditioning. A good example would be the scenario we covered in class, with Pavlow and the dog. At first, the unconditioned stimulus was the food, and …

…response. Another good example is Watson's experiment, where he taught the baby to fear mice. Operant conditioning is learning in which voluntary responses are controlled by their consequences. Reinforcement strengthens a response and makes it more likely to reoccur, where punishment weakens a response and makes it less likely to reoccur. Positive is where something is given, either punishment or reward, and negative is where something is taken away either as a punishment or reward.