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Blake Garner
Psychology 211
Professor Donegan
11 February 2015
“It’s not just about Salivating Dogs!”
Have you ever heard a certain noise, or smell a certain odor and automatically be
reminded of something else? This sensation is because you have been conditioned to associate a
certain noise, smell, sound or any other stimulus with a particular feeling. This idea is known as
classical conditioning which was developed and theorized by the Russian physiologist Ivan
Petrovich Pavlov almost one hundred years ago. Pavlov decided to conduct an experiment testing
classical conditioning on a group of dogs. He wanted to find out if conditioned reflexes are not
inborn, how are they acquired? (Hock 67). Pavlov conducted this experiment to better
understand human behavior. The procedure consisted of training a group of dogs to associate the
sound of footsteps with food. Pavlov believed that he could condition the group of dogs to
associate the sound of his footsteps with food, and therefore salivate before even seeing the food.
Pavlov proposed that “If a particular stimulus in the dog’s environment was often present when
the dog was fed, this stimulus would become associated in the dog’s brain with food; it would
signal the approaching of food” (Hock 67). He hypothesized that eventually after time the dogs
would salivate over the sound of footsteps. He believed that this was the process in which a
neutral stimulus could turn into a conditioned stimulus.
Pavlov tested his hypothesis by conducting a laboratory experiment. He built a special lab
at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in the city which is now known as St. Petersburg in
Russia. His laboratory was completely isolated and totally soundproof which allowed only the
specific sound of footsteps to be the only stimulus heard by the group of dogs. Pavlov’s
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independent variable in his experiment was the stimulus of the sound of his footsteps while the
dependent variable was the response of salivating by the dogs. Pavlov didn’t have an
experimental group and a control group since he had to use the same group of dogs in order to
condition them to respond to a particular stimulus over time. His control was when he gave the
dogs food to make them salivate without a stimulus. His experimental group was the same group
of dogs however there was a stimulus introduced before they got their food. There was a positive
correlation between the dog food, the stimulus, and how much the dogs salivated. As the dog
received food or heard the stimulus, their salivation increased.
Pavlov’s experiment was fairly simple. He played a sound of footsteps before feeding the
dogs every day. Eventually the dog’s learned to associate the sound with the reward of being fed
and would salivate by just hearing the stimulus. His findings proved that a previously neutral,
insignificant stimulus can be conditioned to trigger a certain response. Pavlov’s findings of his
classical condition experiment explained human behavior a great deal and helped the field of
psychology be better recognized as a true science. The idea of classical conditioning, now known
as Pavlovian Conditioning, helps us better understand why we get anxiety over tests and job
interviews, where phobias come from, dislike to certain foods, what causes certain emotions,
sexual arousal, and many other things. Pavlov stated that “Any reflex can be conditioned to
occur to a previously neutral stimulus” (Hock 71) Ivan Petrovich Pavlov paved the way for
behavioral scientists and influenced both scientific and research disciplines with his work.
The Psychology textbook also talks about Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiment in
Chapter 5, Learning. The text gives a more description of different factors of classical
conditioning such as spontaneous recovery, higher-order conditioning, extinction, stimulus
discrimination, and stimulus generalization. The textbook informed me that stimuli can become
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extinct and be recovered, that stimuli similar to the conditioned stimuli can have the same effect,
and that a neutral stimulus can be paired with a conditioned stimulus to make two stimuli instead
of one. This study of classical conditioning will help be live a better and more informed life. I’ve
always noticed how certain songs elicit a particular emotion and memory from me, or how the
smell of my tanning lotion makes me think of my trips to Florida. I can use this knowledge to
better understand all the triggers that I notice in my everyday life.
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Works Cited
Ciccarelli, Saundra K., and J. Noland. White. (2012). Psychology. Upper Saddle River: Pearson
Prentice Hall
Hock, Roger R. (2013). Forty Studies That Changed Psychology: Explorations into History of
Psychological Research. Boston: Pearson.