Blog Post #8

Hello

Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning that links two or more stimuli and then anticipates the events. It was first introducted by Ivan Pavlov in a experiment involving a dog and ringing bells. An example is you eat a new food at a restaurant, a mushroom swiss burger, and then you get sick with the flu. You then become nauseated and ill feeling whenever you smell the mushroom swiss burger and you begin to dislike the food. The nauseau is a automatic response.

Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to change the occurence and form of behavior. An example is a student does very well their first semester of college. Her father then gives her a credit card to use because she did so well. The student then continues to get better grades in her second semester of college. The credit card is given and it creates her behavior to do well.

The differences between classical and operant conditioning is operant deals with "voluntary behavior". It operates on the environment and is maintained by our consequences. Classical deals with preceding events and the way we respond to them, they are not maintained by consequences. I think it is interesting because I have used both classical and operant conditioning in my life many times without even knowing it. One time I had a chicken and bacon pizza for supper and then I got sick. Since then whenever I see it or smell it I feel sick and nauseated. I did not realize that I did that because of classical conditioning. I also do the same thing for operant conditioning whenever I do good in school and I show my report card to my grandparents they give me money. As a result I continue to try and do my best because I know if I do good they will give me money. I think they are interesting because I didn't know that our behaviors are based on these conditions that we learned.

A positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior is followed by a favorable stimulus that will increase the frequency of the behavior. An example is after every week of completing my chores at home, my parents would give me some money to spend on whatever I wanted. I realized if I finished them and did them good I could get a little extra spending money. A negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior if followed by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus therefore increasing the behavior's frequency. Every morning I set my alarm so that I can get up. Sometimes I am so tired that I am too lazy to turn it off eventually I have to because the sound is very annoying. The more I get annoyed the quicker I will turn it off. A punishment is a consequence that causes a behavior to happen less frequently. An example is that I talked back to my mother one time and we got an a arguement. She punished me and I had to do extra chores around the house including laundry and dishes. I learned that I shouldn't talk back to my mother.

The most interesting thing I learned in this section was that us humans may be prepared biologically more to learn some associations easier rather than others. If becoming ill after eating something we tend to not associate with that restaurant or grocery store. Even birds who hunt by sight will become biologically primed to develop the sight of tainted foods. In the book it also explains how men are naturally more attracted to women and the color red without being aware of it. They explained how frequent the pairing of red on Valentine's day and red lipstick enhance a man's attractions towards females. In the book a picture of a women is framed in black and red and the picture in red was found more attractive by men then the other one. I thought this was interesting because all of us associate things in our daily lives, some are noticeable and some we are unaware of. I think we continue to learn because our biology prepares us for several environmental factors. I don't think it changes any way that I think about things because association is just a major part of how we learn and experience life.