Naturally, Skinner’ s theory and some of the implications derived from it
are highly controversial. Skinner described happiness as “a by-product of op-
erant reinforcement. ”The things that bring happiness are the ones that rein-
force us. In his most controversial work, Beyond Freedom and Dignity
(1971), Skinner argued that it is time we moved beyond the illusion of per-
sonal freedom and the so-called dignity we award ourselves for our actions.
We don’ t freely choose to do something as the result of inner moral decisions.
We simply respond to environmental demands. We attribute dignity to people
for admirable behavior, but because behavior is under the control of external
contingencies, dignity is also an illusion. If you rush into a burning building
to save people, it is not because you are heroic or foolish but because youhave a history of reinforcements and contingencies in similar situations.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF CONDITIONING
Traditional behaviorists explain the causes of behavior in terms of learningexperiences, or conditioning. They do not deny the influence of genetics butdownplay its importance relative to the power of conditioning. According to
behaviorists, if we are to understand the processes that shape our personal-
ities as well as develop procedures for changing problem behaviors, we must
examine basic conditioning principles. It is convenient to divide conditioning
into two categories: classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning and operant (or in-
strumental) conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning begins with an existing stimulus-response (S-R) associa-
tion. For example, some people cringe (response) whenever they see a spider
(stimulus). Although you may not be aware of them, your behavior repertoire
contains a large number of S-R associations. You might feel faint when you
see blood, want to eat whenever you smell chocolate, or become nervous
when you find yourself more than a few feet off the ground.
In his classic demonstration of conditioning, Pavlov used the S-R associa-
tion of food and salivation. He presented hungry dogs in his laboratory withmeat powder (stimulus), to which they would always salivate (response).
Because this S-R association existed without any conditioning from Pavlov,we call the meat powder the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the salivation
theunconditioned response (UCR). Then Pavlov paired the old, unconditioned
stimulus with a new, conditioned stimulus (CS). Whenever he presented the
meat powder to the dogs, he also sounded a bell. After several trials of presentingthe meat powder and the bell together, Pavlov simply sounded the bell without
the powder. What happened? As nearly every psychology student knows, the
dogs began to salivate at the sound of the bell, even though no meat powder
had been presented. The salivation had become the conditioned response (CR),
part of a new S-R association (bell tone-salivation) in the dogs ’behavioral
repertoire.
The classical conditioning procedure is diagramed in Figure 13.1. Once
the new S-R association is established, it can be used to condition still anotherBasic Principles of Conditioning 345