Pavlov’s Classical Behaviorism

Certainly the best-known classical behaviorist is the Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov, who at the turn of the century conducted a series of experiments in which he trained a dog to salivate to the tone of a bell through a procedure that has come to be labeled classical conditioning. For Pavlov the learning process consisted of the formation of associations between stimuli and reflexive responses. Alt of us are-aware that certain stimuli automatically produce or elicit rather specific responses or reflexes, and we have also observed that sometimes that reflex occurs in response to stimuli that appear to be indirectly related to the reflex.Pavlov used the salivation response to the sight or smell of food (an unconditioned response) in many of his pioneering experiments. In the classical experiment he trained a dog, by repeated occurrences, to associate the sound ot a bell with food until the dog acquired a conditioned response: salivation at the sound of the bell. A previously neutral stimulus (the sound of the bell) had acquired the power to elicit response (salivation) that was originally elicited by another stimulus (the smell of meat).

•Pavlov conducted a series of experiments in which he trained a dog to salivate to the tone of a bell through a procedure that is called classical conditioning.

•The learning process consisted of formation of associations between stimuli and reflexive responses.

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Smell/Sight of food salivation

(stimulus) (unconditioned response)

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{Classical experiments (repeated occurrences)}

◦The sound of bell salivation

(stimulus) (conditioned response)

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Drawing on Pavlov's findings, John B. Watson (1913) coined the term behaviorism. In the empirical tradition of John Locke. Watson contended that human behavior should be studied objectively, rejecting mentalistic notions of innateness and instinct. He adopted the classical conditioning theory as the explanation for all learning: by the process of conditioning, we build an array of stimulus-response connections, and more complex behaviors are learned by building up series or chains of responses. Later, EL Thorndike expanded on classical conditioning models by showing that stimuli that occurred after a behavior had an influence on future behaviors. Thorndike's Law of Effect paved the way for another psycholo gist, B. F Skinner, to modify our understanding of human learning—to be discussed in the next section, Pavlov's, Watson's, and Thorndike's emphasis on the study of overt behavior and rigorous adherence to the scientific method had a tremendous influence on learning theories for decades. Language teaching practices likewise for many years were influenced by a behavioristic tradition.