I learned very well from the concepts of behaviorism, its definition, and relevance in educational psychology. With that, I would like to share my insights on one of these concepts, Ivan Pavlov’s ‘conditioned reflex’.

In this update, I will particularly share three topics: (1) classical conditioning according to Pavlov’s dog experiment, (2) conditioned and unconditioned response, and (3) an example using the student-teacher or classroom context.

Pavlov uses food and buzzer to stimulate the dog’s behavior which is salivation. Before the experiment, he placed a tube in front of the dog’s mouth to measure the flow or level of the dog’s saliva. Using a screen, he measured the response of the dog to the food which is salivation. In the event of experimenting with the effect of the buzzer on the dog’s behavior, Pavlov tried to stimulate the dog’s behavior by conditioning the dog that food will come once the buzzer started to ring. Since the dog used to salivate every time the food comes, by the time the dog was eventually conditioned between the association of the buzzer, the food, and his response, the dog learned to salivate at the time the buzzer started to ring, even before the presence of the food.

I made this illustration to better demonstrate Pavlov's experiment on classical conditioning.

In this dog experiment, classical conditioning is defined as an act wherein there is an association between stimuli that causes a new response to the person or animal’s behavior [1]. The unconditioned stimulus includes the food and the unconditioned response is the dog’s reaction to food which is to salivate. Since Pavlov learned that there is no need to teach the dog to salivate every time the food comes, he tried to associate a material to make a conditioned response. He did this using the buzzer, a new stimulus. Because of the association the dog learned between the new stimulus, the dog was conditioned to a new behavior which is the salivation in the presence of the buzzer, even before Pavlov gave food on his dog.

Using the student-teacher context, we can see the implications of Pavlov’s classical conditioning when a new stimulus coming from a teacher conditioned a new behavior to the student. Say for example, when a student links a negative response like fear when he is being called by his teacher in recitations. The student may also learn to associate fear as a response to other situations he may encounter with the teacher, like talking about his project or asking a question. This probability explains why teachers must at least associate positive communication responses whenever they interact with their students. This is necessary for holistic learning.

Reference:

[1] Mcleod, S. (2018). Pavlov’s Dog. Simply Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html