Ivan Pavlov - week 4

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov is one of the most famous animal behaviourists as a result of his conditioning work with dogs. He was the first Russian Nobel laureate, winning the Nobel Prize in 1904. 

Pavlov's work on dogs focused on conditioning - 'a behavioural process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement.' Essentially, Pavlov was looking at learning behaviours, not instinctive behaviours like Konrad Lorenz and Tinbergen. There are two different forms of conditioning - classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Pavlov's dogs follow the classical conditioning model, whereas Burrhus Skinner's rats follow the operant conditioning model. This is next week's topic.


Your task this week is to investigate Pavlov's dogs. To do this, please answer the following questions in the comments section.

  1. What is classical conditioning?
  2. What was Pavlov's study (his method)?
  3. What did he find out? 
  4. Can this be linked to any human behaviours? 
  5. Was this study ethical? Why do you think this? (No wrong answer so long as you can justify this!)
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