Classical Conditioning Theory

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a potent stimulus obtains the ability to evoke an innate response that was originally elicited by a neutral stimulus. In classical conditioning, a UR is an event that occurs naturally in response to some stimuli. On the other hand, a UR is the stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without learning. A CS in classical conditioning is an originally neutral stimulus that, through learning, comes to be associated with some unlearned responses. Finally, a CR is the learned response to the originally neutral but now conditioned stimulus (CITE BOOK). These are the basic components involved in classical conditioning. Classical conditioning theory was first discovered and described
144). Doob (1947) further stressed the learned character of attitudes and asserted, “the learning process, therefore, is crucial to an understanding of the behavior of attitudes” (pg. 138). Based on these viewpoints, Staats and Staats proposed that the principles of classical conditioning should apply to attitudes; hence they decided to study the relationship between attitudes and classical conditioning theory (CITE). In 1957, Staats and Staats, two psychology professors at Arizona State College at Temple, published an article entitled “Attitudes Established by classical conditioning,” which was a research conducted on the formation of attitudes to socially significant verbal stimuli through classical conditioning. In their study, they used national names and familiar masculine names as two socially verbal stimuli. They posited that these two types of stimuli would elicit attitudinal responses on the basis of the pre-experimental experience of the studied group by the authors. Consequently, the purpose of their study was “to test the hypothesis that attitudes already elicited by socially significant verbal stimuli can be changed through classical conditioning, using other words as unconditioned stimuli” (pg.
In the first experiment, the “Ss” were divided into two groups. Two types of stimuli were used on them: national names which were presented digitally through PowerPoint (CS names) and words which were presented orally by the instructors called “E” (US words). For the second stimulus, the “Ss” were required to repeat the word out loud immediately after “E” had pronounced it. Two tasks were first given to the “Ss.” The first task was to learn five visually presented national names, each shown four times in random order, and “Ss” were required to recall them in order to test their learning. The second task was to study 33 auditorily presented words. In order to test their learning, after repeating each word aloud after “E”, “Ss” were then presented 12 pairs of words and they were required to recognize which one of each pair had just been presented by