Classical Conditioning - Ivan Petrovich Pavlov

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov - Classical Conditioning

Born: September 26, 1849, Ryazan, Russia.

Died: February 27, 1936 (age 86 years), St. Petersburg, Russia

Overview

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian physiologist and Nobel laureate who discovered classical conditioning through his experiences with dogs and food. The dogs upon hearing the metronome ticking - involuntary responses became associated with a new stimulus. Pavlov observed that his dogs would salivate at the sound of the metronomes even though there was no food present. (In his early observations the stimuli were white coats and metal plates - in his experiments he used ticking metronomes.) This learning experiment has simply been called “Pavlov’s dogs” and can be found in every list of great psychological experiments.  More importantly, it has been called Pavlov’s Theory of Learning and joins all of the other theories of learning.

Usage in Education

This theory involves an unconditioned stimulus (like food) and an unconditioned response (salivation), which are paired with a neutral stimulus (like a metronome) to create a conditioned stimulus that elicits a conditioned response. It provides educators with a framework for understanding and shaping student behavior through the consistent pairing of neutral cues with desired responses or consequences, which is influential in areas like classroom management, motivation, and habit formation. While other psychologists were concerned with understanding conscious experience, John Watson, founder of Behaviorism, thought that the study of consciousness was flawed. He believed that objective analysis of the human mind was impossible. You will note that much of Behaviorism features cats, mice, and small children. I believe that Pavlov’s work is a little more subjective than Watson would agree to.

Classical conditioning applied to education/coaching

Behavior management: When a teacher raps on her desk, the noise level in the classroom will go down or the group discussions will be terminated.

Reinforcement and motivation: Coaches can increase student motivation by associating learning tasks with positive outcomes, such as pats on the back and stickers on helmets. Linking undesirable behaviors with negative consequences, such as a lot of push-ups,  can help reduce those behaviors.

Building positive associations: Teachers can use conditioning to foster positive emotional responses. Giving tests in a familiar setting with a familiar test-giver, their teacher, may result in higher achievement test scores, that is called State-Dependent Memory.

Establishing routines: Coaches can use consistent cues, such as blowing your whistle in a special way that your players know that practice for the day is over and it’s time to cease the action. By repeatedly pairing the signal with the expected reaction, players learn to respond appropriately.

Stimulus-response theory (S - R)

Stimulus-response theory (S - R) was developed from early conceptions of conditioning, a behavioral process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement. (This process will be further developed by the Perceptualists as S-O-R.  This will be dealt with in the future session on Perceptualism.)

One version of the stimulus-response theory suggested that the occurrence of a new response to a given stimulus, as when Pavlov’s experiments showed that dogs can be conditioned to salivate in response to a ticking metronome, is sufficient to strengthen the connection.

"Don't become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin."

— Ivan Petrovich Pavlov