Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is a type of learning which can explain how we develop fears, phobias and other emotional reactions, and food aversions. Ian Pavlov (1849 – 1936) was the first to study it formally.
Pavlov was studying dogs digestive processes. Dogs automatically salivate when food arrives in their mouths, but after being in the experimental situation for a while, they would salivate in anticipation of the food arriving, as if they had learned to recognise the signs that the food was on its way. Pavlov took control of these signs and showed that dogs could be trained to salivate to bells, lights, and cardboard shapes instead of food. The classical conditioning process works like this:

There must first of all be an innate reflex action, an automatic involuntary response to a stimulus. E.g. blinking, salivation, startle, these are the areas that are under the control of the autonomic nervous system. Such reflexes consist of an unconditional stimulus (UCS) which brings about an unconditional response.(UCR)
The experimenter presents a neutral stimulus just before or along with the UCS. The new stimulus is called a conditioned stimulus (CS), Conditional means dependent upon learning. The UCR occurs as before.
After several pairings of the CS and UCS the CS alone will be enough to bring about the UCR. The animal now has a new conditioned reflex.

The model gives us an explanation for all kinds of learned behaviour. Watson and Rayner (1920) classically conditioned an 11 month old boy called Little Albert to fear white rats. Albert was pre-tested with a white rat, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool and burning newspaper. He was interested in these, but not afraid of them, he was however startled by a loud noise. To condition little Albert Watson & Rayner used the white rat as the conditioned stimulus and the loud noise as the