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Classical Conditioning

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DOI: 10.4135/9781483365817.n256

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 The SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal
and Clinical Psychology
Classical Conditioning

Contributors: Tanja Michael

Edited by: Amy Wenzel
Book Title: The SAGE Encyclopedia of Abnormal and Clinical Psychology
Chapter Title: "Classical Conditioning"
Pub. Date: 2017
Access Date: April 12, 2017
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications, Inc.
City: Thousand Oaks,
Print ISBN: 9781483365831
Online ISBN: 9781483365817
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483365817.n256
Print pages: 660-663
©2017 SAGE Publications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.
This PDF has been generated from SAGE Knowledge. Please note that the pagination of
the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.
SAGE SAGE Reference
Contact SAGE Publications at http://www.sagepub.com.

Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning in which organisms adjust their

responses according to observed temporal relations between environmental stimuli or stimuli
that are produced and perceived within the organism. It is also known as Pavlovian
conditioning, as Ivan Pavlov is often credited with its discovery. Pavlov was a Russian
physiologist who studied the digestive system. In the 1920s, he described that his laboratory
dogs started salivating not only at the presentation of food (which is to be expected, as saliva
helps break down food) but also at stimuli that appeared in temporal proximity to the
presentation of food (e.g., a metronome that was switched on shortly before feeding).
Because of Pavlov’s famous experiments, the best known form of classical conditioning
comprises the pairing of a neutral stimulus, the conditioned stimulus (CS), with a biologically
potent stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus (US) that elicits an unconditioned response (UR).
After repeated pairings of the CS with the US, the organism exhibits a conditioned response
(CR) when confronted with the CS. Thus, according to this terminology, Pavlov’s dogs
displayed a CR when salivating to the sound of the metronome. Importantly, as the CR is not
a biologically hard-wired response, it is less permanent than the UR and open to extinction.
Extinction describes the gradual decline of a behavior when the CS is repeatedly presented
without the US. The phenomenon of extinction was also first described by Pavlov, who
documented that his dogs gradually stopped salivating at the sound of the metronome when
it was no longer presented in the context of feeding. This entry discusses the acquisition and
extinction of CRs and the relevance of classical conditioning to mental health disorders,
including treatment.

Acquisition of CRs

During the early part of the 20th century, behaviorists assumed that the CR is an automatic
response that is best understood in a stimulus-response (S-R) framework. In its extreme, this
view has been understood to propagate the idea that after acquisition, an organism is
automatically and somewhat unintelligently responding to a CS just because it was paired
with a US. Decades of research have not only turned classical conditioning into perhaps the
most studied form of associative learning but also clearly demonstrated that classical
conditioning represents a highly adaptive and context-dependent learning process that takes
past experiences into account.

For example, although classical conditioning can result from S-R learning, there is vast
evidence that often stimulus-stimulus (S-S) learning takes place. S-R learning refers to the
circumstance wherein an association is formed directly between the CS and the organism’s
reaction to the US—that is, the UR. Therefore, after repeated pairings of the previously
neutral stimulus and the UR, the CR becomes basically identical to the UR, albeit often
slightly weaker. S-S learning means that an association is formed between the CS and the US
—that is, the CS becomes directly associated with the US. Thus, the CR might resemble the
UR, but it might be related to the US in different ways, depending on what type of behavior
best suits the environment in which the organism is confronted with the CS. For example,
when an animal detects a CS that signals danger, three different outcomes are possible.
When the CS signals temporally distant danger, the animal might not show an overt CR but
might continue with its current activities—that is to say, it remains in its pre-encounter mode. If
the CS signals forthcoming danger, the animal will often display species-specific defense
responses that have in the past helped circumvent encounters with the danger (e.g., freezing
and immobility). When the CS signals imminent threat, the animal is likely to show a fully
fledged defense response (e.g., flight or fight) that is very much similar to the UR when the
animal is directly confronted with a US (e.g., predator). Understanding the importance of the

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learning context in humans has contributed to the knowledge of fear-related disorders as well
as other medical issues such as drug tolerance. Stimuli that are paired with deviations from
homoeostasis elicit opponent-like conditioned reactions. When a drug is taken repeatedly
alongside the same environmental cues, these cues serve as a CS that opposes the effect of
the drug. Therefore, the dose has to be increased in order to reach the same effect, or
overdosing can occur when the drug is taken in a different context.

S-S learning also opened the door for a cognitive orientation to classical conditioning. Up to
the mid-1960s, it was assumed that contiguity, the co-occurrence of CS and US in time and
space, was the foundation of conditioning, but one decade later, it was firmly established that
contiguity is not sufficient for conditioning. It emerged that conditioning works only for stimuli
that are good predictors of the US because of their evolutionary history (preparedness) or
because they provide useful information (contingency). Probably the most influential model
on associative strength was published in 1972 by Robert A. Rescorla and Allan R. Wagner.
The model computes associative strength on a trial-by-trial (i.e., pairing of the CS and US)
basis, and the amount of conditioning on any trial depends on the difference between the
current strength and the maximum possible strength. Although the model was able to
account for a wide range of data, it had problems in explaining certain phenomena such as
latent inhibition (or pre-exposure effect, which describes slower conditioning to a CS that was
previously presented). The Rescorla-Wagner model is sometimes called a US-processing
model, as predictions are based on how the US is processed. Since the mid-1970s, most
conditioning models are hybrid models that make assumptions not only about how the US is
processed but also about the processing of the CS, as it has been shown that, for example,
the associability of the CS determines CRs.

Although a vast bulk of conditioning work has been carried out with nonhuman animals, it is
generally assumed that the results are highly relevant for humans. However, some
researchers have stressed the point that human conditioning has some specific characteristics
and might depend more critically on high-level cognitive systems than is the case in
nonhuman animals. For example, some conditioning effects in humans require contingency
awareness, that is to say, learning effects are only found when participants are aware of the
CS-US contingency. Furthermore, verbal instructions and principles of reasoning can affect
the outcome of human classical conditioning effects. For example, contingency beliefs and
expectancy ratings have often been found to be correlated with the conditioning outcome.
Furthermore, the lowering of contingency beliefs and threat appraisals has led to attenuated
acquisition and facilitated extinction in aversive classical conditioning procedures in humans.

Extinction of CRs

Just like acquisition, extinction is a complex phenomenon that is more complicated than one
might assume at first glance. The most basic description defines extinctions as representing
the gradual decline of a behavior when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US. Before
research into extinction gained momentum, it was often just assumed that in extinction the
CS-US memory association breaks and stops existing. However, it is well established that
extinguished responses can return, which indicates that the association is intact. Several
relapse phenomena have been described:

Spontaneous recovery describes the resurgence of CRs after a period of time in which no
conditioned responding was displayed.
Renewal effect refers to a change of context after extinction that can cause the return of
conditioned responding. The most commonly studied form of the renewal effect is “ABA

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renewal,” in which acquisition is conducted in Context A and extinction is conducted in

Context B. When the CS is again presented in Context A, responding to the CS resumes.
The contexts are typically different rooms of the laboratory that differ in several sensory
aspects, like color or smell. The renewal effect seems to be supported by change of many
types of context, such as different physiological states or the passage of time. Thus,
spontaneous recovery can be seen as the renewal effect that occurs when the CS is
tested outside its temporal context.
Reinstatement refers to the return in responding through reexposure to the US after
extinction has taken place.
Rapid reacquisition occurs when the CS is again paired with the US after extinction. It
means that the reestablishment of the CR is faster than its original acquisition.

These relapse phenomena suggest that extinction behavior is mainly displayed in the
extinction context. Similar to acquisition models, theoretical models of extinction assume that
correction of prediction error is an underlying mechanism of extinction. To illustrate, at the
beginning of extinction, it is surprising that the US does not follow the CS. Therefore, the
associative strength between the CS and US decreases until the CS accurately predicts that
the US does not occur. Actually, most prediction error models of extinction assume that the
prediction error is based on inhibitory learning, meaning that after extinction the CS has both
inhibitory associations with the US (learned during extinction) and excitatory associations
(retained from acquisition). However, the partial reinforcement extinction effect shows that
associative strength (excitatory and/or inhibitory) is not enough to explain extinction. The
partial reinforcement extinction effect refers to the observation that extinction is slower when
the US is intermittently reinforced rather than when it is always reinforced. This effect is most
often explained as meaning that it creates difficulties to discriminate extinction from acquisition
or, put slightly differently, that extinction performance depends on contextual discrimination.

Relevance of Classical Conditioning to Mental Health Disorders

Conditioning processes represent one of the best researched psychological mechanisms;

therefore, it is not surprising that conditioning models have a huge impact on clinical
psychology. In particular, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has always been linked with the
scientific investigation of learning. At first glance, one might believe that it is exclusively the
behavioral part of CBT that entertains strong links to conditioning work. After all, behavior
therapy is commonly defined as the application of learning principles to the treatment of
mental health disorders. However, as cognitions feature strongly in several human
conditioning models, the cognitive part of CBT also can be linked to conditioning work, albeit
to a lesser degree.

In particular, the etiology and treatment models of anxiety disorders—as well as related
disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or obsessive-compulsive disorder—
have been heavily influenced by conditioning models. On the one hand, conditioning
experiences are widely recognized as playing a major part in the development of these
disorders, in which distressing and frightening experiences play a decisive role. For example,
from a conditioning viewpoint, it is not surprising that someone who experienced trauma
develops strong fear reactions to stimuli that are associated with the traumatic event and that
can thus be classified as conditioned stimuli. So symptoms of PTSD such as intense distress
and/or marked physiological reactivity to trauma-related stimuli are actually to be expected.
Even when people do not report that they themselves have experienced the distressing event,
aversive conditioning is often at play. It is well established that observational learning can be
conceptualized as a conditioning experience since associations between an unpleasant event

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(US) and associated stimuli (CS) can easily be formed by observation. Under certain
conditions, observational learning can lead to even stronger associations than individual
learning. Therefore, classical conditioning can explain well why people who have only
witnessed a traumatic event can also develop PTSD. Furthermore, as surprising as it might
sound, CRs can even be acquired when the CS and/or US are only mentally represented.
Knowing this, it is maybe less surprising that people can develop phobias to stimuli that
actually never harmed them in reality but that have a high preparedness for fear learning
(e.g., arachnophobia, or spider phobia).

The acquisition of conditioned fear or disgust or any other emotion is relatively easily
explained by classical conditioning, and its contribution to the development of mental health
disorders is widely recognized. Therefore, vital questions include the following: Why do
chronic emotional problems not develop in every person who experiences an aversive event,
and why are these responses not extinguished once the stimulus no longer signals harm?

Answers to these questions may arise from an evolutionary perspective, in which, for example,
fear conditioning is regarded as the activation of functional behavioral systems for defense.
Framed like this, fear conditioning is the prediction of threat to guarantee survival. However,
this prediction will not be perfect, as in complex environments danger signals are only
probabilistically related to harm, and both misses and false alarms will occur. Also, false
alarms have costs (e.g., wasted energy), whereas misses are likely to be catastrophic; thus,
the system favors false alarms over misses. This is probably one reason why fear-related
disorders are among the most prevalent mental health disorders.

A definitional feature of fear-related disorders is the activation of fear in situations that are
actually safe, and pathological fear can be conceptualized as accumulated false alarms. In
alignment with this assumption are the results of numerous studies involving patients with
fear-related disorders utilizing fear-conditioning paradigms. Patients show increased fear
responses to conditioned safety cues (CS−) during acquisition. CS− refers to a stimulus that
remains unpaired during the experiment, whereas CS+ refers to a stimulus that is paired with
the US. Often, simple geometric figures, such as a triangle and a square, are used as CS+
and CS−. These results might indicate impaired ability to inhibit fear in the presence of safety
cues or increased generalization of fear to safe stimuli. Furthermore, patients demonstrate
reduced extinction, which is expressed by enhanced responding to the stimulus paired with
the US (CS+). It is assumed that multiple factors ranging from genetic vulnerability over
individual learning history to personal threat expectations underlie this increased
conditionability.

Classical Conditioning and the Treatment of Mental Health Disorders

As with explanatory models, it is especially the treatment of fear-related disorders that is

tightly linked to classical conditioning, in particular to extinction processes. A key diagnostic
criterion of fear-related disorders is that patients show excessive fear and avoidance of stimuli
that signal threat to them (e.g., a spider for someone with spider phobia) and of contexts
associated with threat (e.g., a pub for someone who was assaulted in one and who has PTSD
as a consequence). If avoidance is not possible, the encounter is endured with dread.
Exposure therapy refers to the repeated and systematic exposure to these situations under
controlled conditions, leading to a decrease in the fear response. Results from decades of
treatment research show that effective psychotherapies for fear-related disorders have
exposure as a common element. Since the decline in fear observed in exposure bears an
obvious resemblance to the decline of fear described in fear extinction, exposure is sometimes

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conceptualized as an extinction-based intervention. In this framework, it has been suggested

that fear extinction is the active ingredient underlying the effectiveness of exposure. Although
the overall effectiveness of exposure is large, not everyone benefits, and some patients fail to
achieve clinically significant improvement. Therefore, techniques related to enhanced
extinction have raised considerable interest in the clinical field since the beginning of the 21st
century. Results from this translational work suggest that exposure should violate threat
expectations as profoundly as possible to decrease the associative strength between the CS
and US by establishing new inhibitory learning (i.e., the CS is not followed by the US).
Furthermore, exposure to multiple fear cues, weaning of safety signals, extensive training, or
conducting exposure in multiple contexts are considered to be of relevance. Similarly,
pharmaceutical agents that enhance extinction learning (e.g., d-cycloserine) or that lead to a
better consolidation of the newly learned inhibitory associations (e.g., cortisol) have been
shown to be useful treatment adjuncts.

See alsoAnxiety Disorders: Overview; Behavior Therapy; Exposure Therapy; Extinction;

Observational Learning; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Tanja Michael
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781483365817.n256
10.4135/9781483365817.n256
Further Readings
Craske, M. G., Hermans, D., & Vansteenwegen, D. (Eds.). (2006). Fear and learning. From
basic processes to clinical implications. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Lieberman, D. A. (2012). Human learning and memory. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
McSweeney, F. K., & Murphy, E. S. (Eds.). (2014). The Wiley Blackwell handbook of operant
and classical conditioning. Oxford, England: Wiley Blackwell.

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