Classical and Operant Conditioning Hard Science

Both Classical and Operant Conditioning are processes of learning; Classical conditioning pairs two stimuli, while operant conditioning pairs behavior and response. I encourage you to look at the Russian Physiologist Ivan Pavlov for his detailed process/experiment on classical conditioning. Operant conditioning is broken up into 4 quadrants Our example of Operant conditioning is broken up into 4 quadrants:

Positive reinforcement

Give something the dog deems valuable and you encourage the good behavior


Negative Punishment

Take away something the dog deems valuable and you discourage the bad behavior


Positive Punishment

Give something bad that the dog would deem unpleasant to discourage the bad behavior


Negative Reinforcement

Take away something bad to encourage the good behavior


This is a type of learning in which the strength of a behavior is modified by its response from us “reward or punishment”

-Reinforcement is used to increase the good behavior in a dog

-Punishment is used to decrease the bad behavior in a dog



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