What is Classical Conditioning - the Psychological Term?

In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov began to study the amounts of saliva produced by dogs when presented with meat in order to better understand their digestive system. One day, he and his assistants noticed that his dogs began to salivate upon hearing them gather up the instruments even before the meat was brought into the room. Curious, Pavlov began to experiment on the dogs by ringing a bell every time they were fed. As time went by, the dogs began to associate the ringing of the bell with the food that they were going to receive. As a result, they would salivate at the sound of the bell even when there was no food in sight. Quite on accident, Pavlov had discovered something important about animal and human nature: our ability to perform associative learning.

What is associative learning?

Without realizing it, we as people are learning by association every day. We learn as children that whenever our grandparents visit they will bring presents or that whenever Christmas decorations go up it is getting near to Christmas. Most of these associations turn out to be true and help us to understand the world around us in a better way. One of the most common examples of associative learning is the relationship between thunder and lightning. Lightning, we have learned, is always followed by thunder. After experiencing this many times, people naturally flinch upon seeing lightning in anticipation of the thunder that will follow.

How does associative learning work?

Associative learning is really very simple. In nature, when we see something or do something we get a response that can be predicted. These basic laws are what makes up all of science: the ability to predict what will happen in a simple situation. For example, when we put money into a candy machine and push a button, we get a candy bar. As we do this over and over again we get the same result and our belief in the action is strengthened. Once the machine breaks, however, our faith in it will fall also and we will stop believing that it will work.

What is classical conditioning and how does it work?

The experiment with Pavlov's dogs in an example of classic conditioning. It is where a natural stimulus (or unconditional stimulus) triggers a natural (or unconditional) response. In this example, placing meat in front of the dogs will naturally cause them to salivate. In such a situation, however, another stimulus called the conditioned stimulus can be introduced. In the experiment, this stimulus was the bell ringing. Because their minds will associate the two things (the bell and the meat), the dogs will salivate just in the presence of the ringing bell.

How does it apply to people?

Some people find it hard to believe, but humans are also very much influenced by natural classical conditioning. Children fear going to the doctor because they associate it with getting a shot, people who have gotten sick at a certain restaurant will never want to eat there again, and having a good or bad experience with a certain person will change the way you think about that person in the future. Recovering alcoholics are told not to go to bars or other places where they are used to drinking because the association will cause their desire to increase. And even in popular culture such as the U.S. version of The Office, classical conditioning is demonstrated by Jim "training" Dwight to ask for a mint every time he hears the Windows opening chime.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning#Pavlov.27s_experiment