Operant Vs Classical Conditioning Essay

Operant and classical conditioning are defined as two types of psychological learning processes (Cherry, About Education). B. F. Skinner a well recognized American psychologist, known for his influence on behaviorism, was the first to present operant conditioning, which emphasizes on the strengthening or diminishing of intentional behavior (Staddon, 2003). Ivan Pavlov a Russian physiologist, known to be responsible for the introduction of classical conditioning, highlights in his theory the unintentional automatic behavior expressed by his studied subjects (Logan, 2002).
Classical conditioning can be described as an unconscious learning process where a subject becomes responsive to a neutral stimulus. It is determined to be a neutral stimulus because it previously had no associated effect on the subject. It then becomes recognized once an unconditional stimulus is presented each time the subject encounters the neutral stimulus. Both together cause the neutral stimulus to be embedded in the brain as the trigger effect that the unconditional stimulus will happen. Subjects present an unconditional response just by the neutral stimulus being presented. (McLeod, 2008)
John Garcia and Bob Koelling conducted a …show more content…
Researches were able to generate an idea that changed the behavior of wild coyotes towards sheep. The sheep were the neutral stimulus, due to the fact that they are a food source to coyotes. Researches would kill a sheep then inject a poison, which was the unconditioned stimulus. This poison proved to be effective since it made the coyotes sick but would not kill them this became the unconditioned response. The coyotes began to recognize that something was wrong with the sheep, which provided researchers a conditioned response from the coyotes. The coyotes ended up getting scared at merely the sight of the sheep, which became the conditioned response (Cherry, About