Conditioning: Treatment, Effects & Risks

The term conditioning originates from the field of psychology. Here, a distinction is made between classical conditioning and instrumental or operant conditioning. Conditioning is primarily used in learning and education. Critics feel the approach of conditioning as too one-sided, because too many other forms of learning are thereby disregarded or even dangerous, if learning degenerates into dressage.

What is conditioning?

The concept of conditioning comes from the psychology of learning. Basically, it is about achieving certain reactions through certain stimuli. A distinction is made between classical conditioning and instrumental or operant conditioning. In classical conditioning, continuous specific stimuli and subsequent rewards reliably trigger physical or behavioral responses. The first example of this classical conditioning was Pavlov’s dogs. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov discovered these reactions by chance and then refined this observation by an experiment in which he always sounded a bell tone before giving food to his laboratory dogs. He achieved with it with his test dogs that with them already before the administration of the fodder a salivation began. Instrumental or operant conditioning always starts from an already existing basic behavior that occurs spontaneously. By rewarding or punishing, what in learning psychology is called positive or negative reinforcers, it is possible to either increase such a behavior in the case of positive reinforcers or decrease it in the case of negative reinforcers.

Function, effect, and goals

Although classical conditioning can be used selectively in experiments, it is not useful in this form in the psychology of learning. It serves only as an explanatory model for behaviors not previously understood. Instead, these findings are often useful in explaining psychosomatic complaints. For example, allergic reactions can occur unconsciously in frightening situations due to the presence of a stimulus that happens to be present at the time, to give an example. In the treatment of such an allergy, it can be helpful to determine when this reaction first occurred and thus find out the connection. Through targeted counter-conditioning, such psychosomatic disorders can then often be well treated, reduced or even cured. This is different with operant or instrumental conditioning. This form of conditioning is used very often today. It is always based on a certain behavior, which is to be changed by the conditioning. Positive reinforcers are also called rewards, negative reinforcers are called punishments. It depends on what is to be achieved with the conditioning, whether it is better to work with positive or negative reinforcers. In today’s psychology of learning, it is considered certain that only positive reinforcers can have the effect of influencing certain strengths in learning in such a way that they are developed and increasingly shown. A person who is praised makes an effort to receive even more praise. An example would be to always reward a horse that is asked to perform certain tricks in a liberty training session with a treat or stroking sessions afterwards. In time, it will then show these behaviors so confidently that it can be reliably demonstrated in a show in front of an audience. The same horse may have been prone to kicking at hoof scraping in earlier times. It is then not praised for this behavior, but punished, for example by a slap, an unfriendly no, or simply by not getting a treat after the hoof scraping. If it gives the hooves without kicking, however, it gets a treat. The horse will probably stop kicking over time when the hoof is scraped, and this is because it has been exposed to negative reinforcers for the non-desired behavior as well as positive reinforcers for the desired behavior. There is a lot of discussion today about using positive reinforcers more than negative reinforcers towards children, especially in school. In the past, more punishment was used; today, more praise is used to get children to cooperate in class.

Risks, side effects and dangers

Criticisms regarding conditioning are primarily made because many other aspects of learning are disregarded in the process. These include the natural curiosity behavior of most living things, including humans, and learning from a model, that is, imitating observed behavior of other socially living animals or other humans. Other criticisms are that conditioning can also train behaviors that are harmful, for example, by praising undesirable negative behavior. It is possible to train a dog to be a dangerous biter in this way. The example of good and bad grades in school as positive and negative reinforcers can be used as an explanatory model to illustrate where the problems of conditioning still lie today. If a child experiences from the beginning that he or she always receives good grades for his or her performance, he or she already feels confirmed at school and will try even harder. At home, the child receives additional praise from parents or other family members and continues to feel validated. It is likely that such a child will continue to develop into a good student. The situation is different for a child who receives predominantly poor grades at the beginning of school. It feels this as a punishment, at home the disappointment of the parents as an additional punishment and can thus possibly lose the desire to learn altogether and more or less refuse to go to school.