What do you do when you hear
a bell ring?
A teacher told this story on himself. When
most teachers hear a bell one of the first things they do is walk out into the
hallway to be a monitor. Right? Just keep a watchful on the students. Well this
guy had acquired such a habit that when he was at home and the doorbell rang
he'd walk into a nearby hallway and "monitor" his family. For him it
was simply such a strong habit that he'd produce the right behaviour (going
into the hall to monitor) at the wrong place (his own home).
In this chapter we will look at Classical
Conditioning, perhaps the oldest model of change there is. It has several
interesting applications to the classroom, ones you may not have thought about
it. Let's look at the components of this model.
The easiest place to start
is with a little example. Consider a hungry dog who sees a bowl of food.
Something like this might happen:
Food ---> Salivation
The dog is hungry, the dog sees the food,
the dog salivates. This is a natural sequence of events, an unconscious,
uncontrolled, and unlearned relationship. See the food, then salivate.
Now, because we are humans who have an
insatiable curiosity, we experiment. When we present the food to the hungry dog
(and before the dog salivates), we ring a bell. Thus,
We repeat this action (food
and bell given simultaneously) at several meals. Every time the dog sees the
food, the dog also hears the bell. Ding-dong, Alpo.
Now, because we are humans who like to play
tricks on our pets, we do another experiment. We ring the bell (Ding-dong), but
we don't show any food. What does the dog do? Right,
Bell ---> Salivate
The bell elicits the same response the sight
of the food gets. Over repeated trials, the dog has learned to associate the
bell with the food and now the bell has the power to produce the same response
as the food. (And, of course, after you've tricked your dog into drooling and
acting even more stupidly than usual, you must give it a special treat.)
This is the essence of Classical
Conditioning. It really is that simple. You start with two things that are
already connected with each other (food and salivation). Then you add a third
thing (bell) for several trials. Eventually, this third thing may become so
strongly associated that it has the power to produce the old behaviour.
Now, where do we get the term,
"Conditioning" from all this? Let me draw up the diagrams with the
official terminology.
"Unconditioned"
simply means that the stimulus and the response are naturally connected. They
just came that way, hard wired together like a horse and carriage and love and
marriage as the song goes. "Unconditioned" means that this connection
was already present before we got there and started messing around with the dog
or the child or the spouse.
"Stimulus" simply means the thing
that starts it while "response" means the thing that ends it. A
stimulus elicits and a response is elicited. (This is circular reasoning, true,
but hang in there.) Another diagram,
We already know that
"Unconditioned" means unlearned, untaught, preexisting,
already-present-before-we-got-there. "Conditioning" just means the
opposite. It means that we are trying to associate, connect, bond, link
something new with the old relationship. And we want this new thing to elicit
(rather than be elicited) so it will be a stimulus and not a response. Finally,
after many trials we hope for,
Let's review these concepts.
There are two key parts.
First, we start with an existing relationship, Unconditioned Stimulus --->
Unconditioned Response. Second, we pair a new thing (Conditioning Stimulus)
with the existing relationship, until the new thing has the power to elicit the
old response.
The example we used here is
from the first studies on classical conditioning as described by Ivan Pavlov,
the famous Russian physiologist. Pavlov discovered these important
relationships around the turn of the century in his work with dogs (really). He
created the first learning theory which precedes the learning theory most
teachers know quite well, reinforcement theory. We will look at reinforcement
theory in a separate chapter, but for now I do want to make a point.
The point is this: Classical conditioning
says nothing about rewards and punishments which are key terms in reinforcement
theory. Consider our basic example,
There is nothing in here
about rewards or punishments, no terminology like that, not even an implication
like that. Classical conditioning is built on creating relationships by
association over trials. Some people confuse Classical Conditioning with
Reinforcement Theory. To keep them separated just look for the presence of
rewards and punishments.
This type of influence is
extremely common. If you have pets and you feed them with canned food, what
happens when you hit the can opener? Sure, the animals come running even if you
are opening a can of green beans. They have associated the sound of the opener
with their food.
Classical conditioning works with people,
too. At a store in America called K-Mart the manager/sales staff turn on a blue
light when a ‘bargain’ is about to come on sale. If you’re ever n America go to
K-Mart and watch what happens when the blue light turns on. Cost conscious
shoppers will make a beeline to that table because they associate a good sale
with the blue light. (And, the research proves that people are more likely to
buy the sale item under the blue light even if the item isn't a good value.)
And classical conditioning works with
advertising. For example, many beer ads prominently feature attractive young
women wearing bikinis. The young women (Unconditioned Stimulus) naturally
elicit a favourable, mildly aroused feeling (Unconditioned Response) in most
men. The beer is simply associated with this effect. The same thing applies
with the jingles and music that accompany many advertisements.
Perhaps the strongest application of
classical conditioning involves emotion. Common experience and careful research
both confirm that human emotion conditions very rapidly and easily.
Particularly when the emotion is intensely felt or negative in direction, it
will condition quickly.
For example, when I was in college I was
robbed at gun point by a young man who gave me The Choice ("Your money or
your life.") It was an unexpected and frightening experience. This event
occurred just about dusk and for a long time thereafter, I often experienced
moments of dread in the late afternoons particularly when I was just walking
around the city. Even though I was quite safe, the lengthening shadows of the
day were so strongly associated with the fear I experienced in the robbery,
that I could not but help feel the emotion all over.
Clearly, classical conditioning is a
pervasive form of influence in our world. This is true because it is a natural
feature of all humans and it is relatively simple and easy to accomplish.
Hill, W. (1985). Learning: A
survey of psychological interpretations. (4th. Ed.). New York: Harper and Row.
Petty, R., & Cacioppo, J. (1981).
Attitudes and persuasion: Classic and contemporary approaches. Dubuque, IA:
William C. Brown.