Operant and Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning was identified by Thorndike (pictured left), he experimented on a number of animals and generalised the results to humans. Classical conditioning is where a conditioned response leads to a conditioned response which has risen from unconditioned response caused by an unconditioned stimulus. Thorndike's Law of Exercise is the theory that when the stimulus and response are connected several times, then the connection is stronger. The more is repeated, the more likely it will …

…not they escaped, the pigeon's behaviour was recorded and then the time between feedings was increased. ¾ of the pigeons developed a repetitive behaviour which they performed when they were fed, the behaviour included turning, hopping etc. When the time was increased between the feeds, the behaviour became worse. Skinner believed this was because the pigeons thought that they were being fed was dependant on their behaviour, this was generalised to human behaviour.