The Importance Of Classical Conditioning

The whole issue of the fright and panic at the school among the children can be psychologically explained. This is because of the fact that the children are reacting to a situation that they feel threatens their lives and as such, they have to behave that way because naturally, their bodies and minds are made of systems that enable them to avoid danger in their lives. Tornado, as it is well known is a life threatening situation because the storm can sweep away people and their properties. It is in their minds that this storm is dangerous enough and it can cause discomfort to them in any way. By locking at classical conditioning in this case, it is easy to find out and understand very well why the children are frightened.
First of all, it has …show more content…
Extinction occurs when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus is presented alone without an unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will eventually cease. Therefore, the aim of the drill was to achieve extinction. This is because the alarm bell, being a conditioned stimulus was presented without the storm being present. Since the children associate the alarm bell and the storm, they got frightened but if the tornado alarm continues ringing without the tornado, which is the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response, which is panic and fright among the students will cease to exist and will eventually die off. This can be achieved through continuous presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus to help the children and even the staff to dissociate the alarm bell and the tornado and therefore stop panicking and becoming frightened whenever the tornado alarm rings. Stimulus discrimination will be achieved when the students discriminate between the tornado and the alarm bell. And this will generally stop the panic among the children in the