My Journey Through Mental Health Education

Woke up to an email from my Psychology instructor asking my permission to publish this with his next set of the curriculum! WHAAAAAAT!!! YEA!!! I've only been asked that once and it wasn't from school it was from our towns' writing contest. So this is pretty big for me. I thought I'd share it with you and see if it hits you as profoundly as it did him.

Classical Conditioning and Associative Learning

Associative learning is when you associate an action with a response. If you do something that causes a negative response, you will most likely refrain from that action any further. The same applies to doing something that rewards you. You start as an infant and do not stop learning which behavior is going to get you positive outcomes and negative outcomes. An example is when a child touches a hot stove. They are unaware of the actual process and their curiosity is what drives them to explore. Once they have touched it and suffer the consequences, they will associate the stove with pain and remain away from it.

Classical conditioning is a manipulation of stimuli to draw out a response you want from the individual or to have a particular outcome. It is also the basic form of learning for all animals, including the human species. As with Pavlov and his salivating dog. The dog has a natural (unconditioned) response of salivating while eating his food. His food is the unconditioned stimuli. A bell was rung just before serving his food and after a period of time, the dog would salivate before the food even arrived. Even after taking away the US(unconditioned stimuli, food) the CS(conditioned stimuli, tone) would produce the same response from the dog. This would only occur for a short period of time because the conditions changed. Now the response is becoming extinct. But if revived with the same conditions, the behavior will remain.

For this to occur there are stages in which the behavior becomes ingrained. The acquisition stage is when the subject manages to link the NS and US. In the dogs’ case, it is when he realizes the bell means food. Any stimuli can be used to produce the outcome you want. Discrimination is the process that the dog can discern between the actual sound of his bell (that makes food appear) and a bell of a similar tone. The dog may drool a small amount but not salivate as he would do with his designated tone. Another response would be a generalization of a CS. If the dog is a pet in a specific way and salivates with anticipation of food, he will likely have a slightly similar response when being pet the same way in a different area. This generalization can occur with any and all CS used to produce a response. If for any reason, it makes complete sense, that the CS is removed and the response becomes extinct.

So how does Classical Conditioning demonstrate Associative Learning? Well if we are learning by associating a specific response with a specific action, that is precisely what is being learned in classical conditioning. The difference is that you are being conditioned (manipulated) with stimuli to produce a response. Associative Learning is a trial and error experiment of reaction and consequences. The baby is not led to the stove to learn that it is hot, he/she curiously touches it and experiences severe pain. In experiencing such a negative emotion, the baby will not visit that stove for quite some time. An association was made between the object that grabbed their attention (the stove), touching it is extremely painful, and because I didn’t like it, I won’t touch it again. That same baby can be playing on the floor in the kitchen when Mom clicks the tray to the high chair and the baby crawls quickly to the high chair in anticipation of food. Of course, this isn’t the first time this is happening, it is conditioned now and comes naturally.

Classical Conditioning is a part of your everyday life! Your alarm clock is set at a certain time (probably with a few snoozes too) so that you have just enough time to get your day going, and to get to your job on time(or school). You stop at red lights and go on green lights because you have been conditioned to understand that is how driving is possible. And if you are unlucky and cut someone off (or get in their say) you will get a loud horn that sends your adrenaline through the roof out of fear. That negative emotion will keep you more alert next time because you now associate a loud horn with an unpleasant experience. They actually work side by side making us biologically adaptive, helping us to prepare for good or bad experiences.