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Classical Conditioning & Operant Conditioning in the Media



Classical Conditioning & Operant Conditioning in the Media

Classical conditioning

The theory of classical conditioning can be defined as an associative learning, which was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov. The theory is also known as Pavlov classical conditioning. The theory explains the fact of pairing an unknown image, word, thing, or a brand repeatedly together with any other stimulus, which a person knows already that automatically elicits feelings or emotions (Miltenberger 2001).

The two examples for classical conditioning are discussed below:

A famous TV show, “the office” in which Jim (a character) conducts an experiment of classical conditioning theory. Jim used to offer Dwighte a mint whenever his computer made a sound. Then, Dwighte used to stick his hand out for a mint when he hears the sound of the computer. However, once Jim did not offer him a mint, which shows that Dwighte was classically conditioned to the sound of computer and associated a mint with this sound.

Another TV show, “family guy”, in which Lois used to shake a bag containing the food of a dog to offer his dog the food. The dog, Brian associated the shaking of the bag with the food, and once, Lois did not offer Brian the food with the shaking of the bag; however, Brian came to him as he thought that he would be offered the food. It represents that the dog was classically conditioned with the shaking of the bag and the food.

The conditioning behavior for the above two examples can be extinguished in following ways:

For the first example, after repeated sounds of computer, Dwighte will learn that he will not get anything after such a sound is produced that can easily extinguish his association with the mint (Malott et al. 2004).

Similarly, Lois may shake the bag but not offer his dog for a few times, which will result in no association of the shaking of the bag with the food.

Operant conditioning

The theory explains the situation of ensuring a certain behavior and then rewarding that behavior. When this behavior has been rewarded enough times, the association will be established. It explains how we learn from the consequences of our behavior, and social learning explains how we learn by watching other people. For instance, the animal will tend to implement this behavior in order to obtain a reward. We have seen that, in classical conditioning, there is no reward after the behavior emitted by the animal but after a conditioned stimulus (Watson 2001).

The two examples for operant conditioning are discussed below:

A famous TV show, “Big Bang Theory”, in which there are two scientists named as Lenard and Sheldon. The girlfriend of Lenard is Penny. Sheldon has tried to use positive reinforcement to train his girlfriend acceptable behaviors, or acceptable in Sheldon's warped mind. Lenard try's to reprehend Sheldon and forbids him from continuing using her girlfriend as a lab animal; Sheldon's response was to spray Lenard saying "bad Lenard," trying to impose negative reinforcement on ...