The 6 differences between classical and operant conditioning

A summary of the key ideas to distinguish between classical and operant conditioning.

When we talk about behaviorism, two terms inevitably come to mind: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Many are those who confuse these ideas, sometimes seen as practically the same thing. Naturally, they are not, and for this reason we are going to go deeper into the differences between classical and operant conditioningbut not before seeing in detail what each one refers to.

How to distinguish between classical and operant conditioning?

Among the most famous currents of thought in psychology we find behaviorism, which takes learning as its main object of study and the reason for its theories. Two of the main forms of associative learning are classical conditioning and operant conditioning, two learning modalities that are sometimes confused when they are spoken of as an inseparable binomial..

The more basic of the two is classical, which consists of implicit associative learning in which two stimuli are associated, an unconditioned stimulus and a conditioned stimulus. The operant, first described by the psychologist E. Thorndike at the beginning of the twentieth century and further developed by the radical behaviorist B. F. Skinner, the individual learns by learning the conditioned stimulus. F. Skinner, the individual learns to associate a response to a stimulus important to him.

What is classical conditioning?

The story of how classical conditioning was discovered is well known. It happened at the beginning of the 20th century, in Tsarist Russia. A physiologist named Ivan Pavlov, of the objectivist-reflexological tradition, was doing research on salivation in animals, wanting to discover its function and composition. He was doing his experiments with dogs and, one day, he noticed that the dogs began to salivate before they even saw the food.How could the dogs know that food was coming without seeing it?

Pavlov realized that dogs behaved this way when they heard his footsteps. The dogs had associated the noise Pavlov made as he approached them with food, so they began to salivate before they even saw the food. It was enough for them to hear the Russian scientist's footsteps to know that they would soon receive a succulent delicacy. This is how Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, also called associative learning, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1904.

The main concepts of classical conditioning are:

• Unconditioned stimulus (UI): stimulus with sufficient intensity to produce a response. It does not require previous experience on the part of the organism to emit a response.
• Unconditioned response (IR): the response triggered by the unconditioned stimulus.
• Neutral stimulus (NS): a stimulus that has no effect on behavior.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): after a repeated association between the IE and the NE, the latter acquires properties of the former and triggers a response similar to the IR.
• Conditioned response (CR): it is the response that occurs before the CS, being basically IR provoked by what before was an EN but now is a CS.

Principles of classical conditioning

An unconditioned stimulus (CS) elicits an unconditioned response (CR).. If a neutral stimulus (NE) is added to that EI, after several joint presentations of both stimuli, the NE will become a conditioned stimulus (CS), i.e., without the need for the EI, it will cause the conditioned response (CR) to be emitted.

In the case of Pavlov's dogs, the EI would be food and the RI would be salivation. The EN/EC would be the sound of Pavlov's footsteps which, accompanied by the presentation of food, would cause the dogs to associate both stimuli and the moment would come when it would be enough to hear such footsteps for the dogs to salivate (CR), without the need to see food.

Classical conditioning explains the acquisition of primary behaviors such as fear of pain, hunger at the sight of food, salivation at the sight of a lemon....

This mechanism explains the acquisition of primary behaviors such as fear of pain, hunger, etc. Its use allows the induction of alarm reactions (cardiac acceleration, activation of the nervous system, etc.) but it is inadequate to construct articulated behaviors. inadequate to build articulated behaviors, such as danger elimination and risk prevention.such as elimination of danger and prevention of risk.

What is operant conditioning?

Classical conditioning is what causes an organism to associate a response with an initially neutral and then conditioned stimulus.. However, this type of conditioning is very basic and primitive, and its main limitation is that the response emitted itself was not new, but was already present before being conditioned to a given stimulus.

Operant or instrumental conditioning, on the other hand, is the situation in which the organism the situation in which the organism, when it performs a new behavior, receives as a consequence a different stimulus.. This type of learning refers to the process in which the frequency of a behavior is modified or altered because of the consequences produced by that behavior. Consequences are always the result of a response to a specific stimulus.

A consequence can be positive (reward) or negative (punishment) for the organism carrying out the response. If the consequences are positive, the probability that the behavior that provoked them will be repeated will increase, while if they are negative, this probability will be reduced. Reinforcement is used to induce the desired behavior to be repeated, while punishment is used to induce the desired behavior to be repeated.while punishment is used to prevent or extinguish undesired behavior.

Among the fundamental concepts of operant conditioning we have:

• Reinforcement: any event that increases the probability that a certain behavior will be done. This can be positive or negative. A positive reinforcement implies something that the organism performing the behavior likes, while a negative reinforcement will imply something that the organism dislikes.
• Punishment: is any procedure used to eliminate a certain behavior. It can be positive or negative. We say that a punishment is negative when something that displeases the experimental subject is provided, while it is negative when something that the experimental subject likes is taken away.
• Extinction: is the reduction of the frequency of the subject's response when it is no longer reinforced or punished.
• Acquisition: is the increase in the frequency of a behavioral pattern, usually when it is reinforced.

Principles of operant conditioning

The most important figure with respect to operant conditioning is B. F. Skinner.. In fact, the experiments of this behavioral psychologist are so important that one of the main elements used to apply operant conditioning is named after him: Skinner's box.

In this box, Skinner put mice that were free to move at random. At a given moment, the rodent would activate a lever designed to drop food. Before long, the mice began to repeat that behavior over and over again, learning that if they pressed the lever they would get food, their reinforcer. Learning of this type was called operant by Skinner, since the organism operates on the environment in the knowledge that it will bring about a certain consequence.

Thus, in this particular case of operant conditioning we have an animal that, by casually pressing the lever, receives food (positive reinforcement). As it presses the lever more and more, it associates this action with receiving something it likes.and therefore will not stop doing it.

Main differences between classical and operant conditioning.

Now that we understand better what is the classic conditioning and the operant conditioning, we are going to approach which are its main differences:

1. Definition

Classical conditioning is a type of learning that involves the association between two stimuli, one of which indicates the appearance of the other.

On the other hand, operant conditioning implies that living organisms learn to behave in a particular way due to the consequences of a certain action taken by a given consequences of a particular action they have taken in the past.

2. Conditioning process

In classical conditioning, the conditioning process takes place when the experimental organism associates two stimuliOne that provokes an involuntary response and the other that, originally, did not provoke anything. After being frequently exposed to both, it ends up emitting an involuntary behavior in response to a stimulus that was previously neutral.

In operant conditioning, on the other hand, the organism's behavior will be modified according to the consequences of that same behavior.

3. Behaviors involved

Classical conditioning is based on involuntary or reflexive behaviors (reflexes) as physiological and emotional responses of the organism.. It is also based on emotions, thoughts and feelings.

In the case of operant conditioning, this is based on voluntary behavior, active actions of the organism that performs a behavior to obtain a consequence afterwards.

4. Control of conditioned responses

In classical conditioning, the organism's responses are under the control of the stimulus, whereas in operant conditioning, control of the responses is exercised by the experimental organism. in operant conditioning, the control of the responses is exercised by the experimental organism..

5. Definition of stimulus

In classical conditioning we speak of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. In operant conditioning, the conditioned stimulus is not defined, but rather we speak of the operant response, the reinforcement and the reinforcement of the response. operant response, reinforcement, punishment, extinction and acquisition of a given behavior are discussed..

6. Role of the organism

The organism plays a passive role in classical conditioning, the occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus being under the control of the researcher.

Contrary to this, in operant conditioning, the occurrence of the reinforcement is under the control of the organism.The person who plays an active role by carrying out a certain conduct that he/she assumes will entail some kind of consequence.