Classical Conditioning vs. Operant Conditioning: Differences and Examples

How Are Behaviors Learned?

Have you ever wondered how our behaviors are learned? Meet Ivan Pavlov and B.F. Skinner, two behavioral psychologists who pioneered the theories of classical and operant conditioning, respectively. Let’s examine how the theories they studied help us understand the way the way we learn.

Classical Conditioning

First, let’s visit Mr. Pavlov. He studied what is called classical conditioning. You’ll sometimes also hear this referred to as respondent conditioning. In classical conditioning, learning refers to involuntary responses that result from experiences that occur before a response.

Classical conditioning occurs when you learn to associate two different stimuli. No behavior is involved. The first stimulus that you will encounter is called the unconditioned stimulus. An unconditioned stimulus produces a response without any previous learning. This response is called an unconditioned response.

For an example of a stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response, let’s imagine a kiss. Kissing creates involuntary arousal responses; it causes you to experience an elevated heart rate, for example. This is a natural response, it is not learned, and it happens automatically. The unconditioned stimulus in this example is the kiss, and the elevated heart rate is the unconditioned response.

In classical conditioning, you now add a neutral stimulus to the experience. It is called a neutral stimulus because it is not associated with the unconditioned response. Thinking of our example of a kiss, imagine that your favorite song is playing when you kiss. The song will be the neutral stimulus. When the song is paired with kissing, your heart rate still increases because of the kiss. However, after repeated pairing of your favorite song with the act of kissing, your brain will start to think, ‘I hear my favorite song, so kissing must be going to happen soon!’ Because of this, you will experience an increased heart rate when you hear your favorite song. Your brain is now associating your favorite song with kissing. Rather than continuing as a neutral stimulus, the song has become a conditioned stimulus because it produces a response with or without the occurrence of kissing. The increased heart rate is an unconditioned response following kissing, but now also becomes a conditioned response when it follows your favorite song. It is a conditioned response following the song because the song would not produce the elevated heart rate if it were not associated with the act of kissing.

Operant Conditioning

Next, let’s visit Mr. Skinner. He studied what is called operant conditioning. You’ll sometimes also hear this referred to as instrumental conditioning. In operant conditioning, learning refers to changes in behavior as a result of experiences that occur after a response.

Operant conditioning involves changing voluntary behaviors. A behavior response is followed by either reinforcement or punishment. Reinforcement following a behavior will cause the behavior to increase, but if behavior is followed by punishment the behavior will decrease.

Let’s go back to the example of the kiss. What would happen if the person put their arms around you and kissed you back enthusiastically? This would be an example of reinforcement and would probably increase the likelihood that you would seek another kiss from the person.

There are two types of reinforcement. Positive reinforcement refers to the addition of something positive. Examples of this would be offering praise or a treat when a desired behavior is displayed. Negative reinforcement occurs when something undesirable is removed whenever a behavior is displayed. Examples of this would be taking aspirin to get rid of a headache or doing the dishes to avoid a fight with your roommate.

Because of its name, negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment. The key difference is that negative reinforcement involves the removal of a negative consequence to increase the likelihood of a response. Reinforcement always increases the occurrence of a response, while punishment always decreases the occurrence of a response.

Now, let’s think of the example of the kiss again. What would happen if, when you attempted to kiss someone, the person became angry and they pushed you away? This would be an example of punishment, and it would probably decrease the likelihood that you would seek a kiss from the person again.

There are also two types of punishment that occur in operant conditioning. Positive punishment is the addition of something undesirable. Examples would be a child receiving a spanking or receiving extra chores for misbehaving. The other type of punishment is negative punishment. Negative punishment is the removal of something pleasing. Examples would be a child being placed in timeout or losing video game privileges for misbehavior.