Ivan Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning
The Russian physicist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (Pavlov) was born in 1849 into a poor, large family. Pavlov was the oldest sibling, also the healthiest one. When Pavlov and his brothers planned to go to a seminary school he was introduced to the work of Darwin and Sechenov. Rather than leaving for the seminary he left to study natural science in Saint Petersburg (Lautenheiser, 1999, ¶ 2&3).
He studied pharmacology and physiology in Saint Petersburg. Later he became a teacher at this academy. Besides teaching, he was involved in medical research. Pavlov was interested in the behavior of both humans and animals, and he was especially interested in reflexes. His biggest contribution to the field of psychology is classical conditioning, a theory about how behavior is learned, for which he received a Nobel Prize in 1904 for this contribution to science (2006, Encarta). Sue, Sue and Sue explain the theory as a process in which responses to new stimuli are learned through association, the process involves an involuntary response such as reflexes, emotional reactions and sexual arousals which are controlled by the autonomic nervous system (2003, p.49). As a young physiologist Pavlov was a firm believer in advantages in psychology through experiments. At the beginning Pavlov was certain that a frightened or suffering animal doesn’t have much value for physiology or medicine. But later, according to his conviction, the scientist has to take care of the animal and, consequently, such co-operation plays a vital role in physiological experiment. During all his life, the scientist used such conviction while he examined the digestion and nervous system (2006, Encarta). As a matter of fact Isaac M. Marks (Marks) also emphasizes on Pavlov’s study with dogs. Dissecting Pavlov’s techniques and explaining each part in detail. Explaining that food to the dog was an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and the salivation is an unlearned unconditioned...