Psychology: Similarities Between Classical And Operant Conditioning

Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning vs. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Jonathan Grunden
Elizabethtown Community and Technical College

Jonathan Grunden
Diane Owsley
Psychology 110
September 23, 2015
Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning vs. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning
Throughout psychology there have been many methods to explain the development of how people act and respond to different things. The two methods that I find most interesting are the Learning Principles of Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning and Skinner’s Operant Conditioning.” To help understand both Classical and Operant conditioning people need to know what exactly both types consist of. Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning according to our book, Introduction to Psychology Gateways to Mind
The reason this is a similarity is because without continuous learning the methods of conditioning would not even exist. For instance both types of conditioning use test subjects to try out these types of learning. Another reason how these two conditioning methods are a like is described by using the term acquisition which I defined earlier in the paper as, “A conditional response must be established and strengthened (202).” This term links these two types of conditioning together by examining both types, because through classical conditioning one stimulus is linked with another to create a response that will occur repeatedly becoming a learned response or behavior associated with whatever stimulus was used. And, Operant conditioning is a response or behavior, being repeatedly done or avoided based on the type of reinforcement used (positive or negative reinforcement) with that
For instance, one major difference is that Classical conditioning happens before a response and Operant conditioning happens after a response. For example, in Classical conditioning Pavlov experimented with dogs. According to the text, “To begin, he rang the bell. At first, the bell was a neutral stimulus (the dogs did not respond to it by salivating.) Immediately after, he placed meat powder on the dogs’ tongues, which caused reflex salivation. This sequence was repeated a number of times: bell, meat powder, salivation; bell, meat powder, salivation (201). So what you can draw from this experiment is that the sequence of events that he performed had to be repeated in order to train the brain to associate the bell with salivation, which had to occur before a response was made. Vs. Operant conditioning which occurs after a response. The example used in the text to explain this is, “Pushing a particular button is reinforced by gaining the consequence you desire, such as changing channels or muting an obnoxious commercial (206).” In this experiment he showed that the response happened after the reinforcing event. So not only are they different because of when the response occurs, but they are also different because Operant conditioning is caused by associating a behavior or response with some type of reinforcement. In this type of response Skinner used either negative or positive reinforcement to