The Russian physiologist I. P. Pavlov discovered classical conditioning by subjecting dogs to some stimuli presented during food consumption. He found that these stimuli caused salivary secretion even when food was not actually supplied.
After a sufficient number of conditioning tests, the conditioned stimulus was capable of eliciting the unconditioned response even in the absence of food supply. In this Psychology-Online article, we will tell you what is a conditioned stimulus and we will see some examples of the same. Understanding how conditioned stimuli work and how to create them is very important to a large number of disciplines such as marketing, advertising, learning, and psychology.
A conditioned stimulus (CS) is any stimulus, internal or external, that initially it does not cause any reaction in the body and that, Through a conditioning process, you can come to create a response. The conditioned stimulus is the counterpart of the unconditioned stimulus. You can check the following article about classical conditioning to understand it better.
Characteristics of the unconditioned stimulus
To better understand what it is, we will tell you what are the main characteristics of the unconditioned stimulus:
- It must be noticeable.
- Do not elicit the same response induced by the unconditioned stimulus-
- It doesn't have to be too intense.
- Conditioned stimuli can be positive, such as light, sound, and negative, such as electroshock or stings.
- Stimuli elicit conditioned reactions. At the same time, Ivan Pavlov It divides conditioned reactions into acquired, that is, established after a certain training, and natural, which are carried out for the most part spontaneously.
By their very nature, conditioned stimuli do not provoke any spontaneous response, on the contrary, reactions only appear when the body is subjected to a conditioning process. This process does not necessarily have to occur in a calculated manner
In our daily life we find many situations that create conditioned stimuli in our mind and in our body. However, if created consciously, associations tend to be more powerful and long-lasting.
For Pavlov, for a stimulus to be conditioned, it must precede in time the unconditional stimulus and keep acting at the same time as this one. It must match at least a certain number of times. Therefore, it takes time for a neutral stimulus to become a conditioned stimulus. This period is called acquisition phase, during which humans or animals learn to connect the neutral stimulus with the unconditional response, thus transforming these repeated and neutral connections into a stimulus conditioned.
Not all conditioned stimuli are equally powerful. The intensity of responses may vary depending on factors such as the associations used or the times in which the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are presented together. For this reason, much of behavioral psychology studies what is the best way to produce powerful responses in certain organisms.
To make it easier for you to identify it, below, we show you different examples of the conditioned stimulus:
Fear of a situation
Imagine that one day you are cycling down the street and suddenly a dog attacks you. From that moment on, it is very likely that you associate the place where the accident occurred with the unpleasant situation that you lived there. For this reason, that path, which was previously neutral, becomes a conditioned stimulus that causes fear and is best avoided.
Aversion to taste
One of the most curious types of classical conditioning It is what is known as aversion to taste. A person tries a new type of food that is initially a neutral stimulus. After consuming it, it quickly turns bad.
From that moment, only smelling or tasting that type of food, the person may feel disgust and rejection of the food. Thus, a new conditioned stimulus is created spontaneously, although food intake has nothing to do with subsequent discomfort.
Routine habits
Every night you like to enjoy your favorite TV show with a cup of tea. Over time, the obstacle will turn into a conditioned stimulus that will make you want to have a cup of tea every time you see it.
Another example of routine habits would be a mother always trying to do yoga when her son naps in the afternoon. As part of the nap routine, the mother reads a couple of books to her son so that he falls asleep. In this case, reading the books is the conditioned stimulus, since when I do it she will start to think about her yoga routine.
Sound association
When a father comes home from work, he always puts the car in the garage. When he does, his children always hear the garage door open from inside the house. In this situation, the children associate the sound of the garage door, which acts as a conditioned stimulus, with the father.
This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
