Conditioned Response - Essay Example

Conditioned Response School Probably everyone has experienced the phenomenon that is called “conditioned response” or learned reflexive response, but we usually don’t even know that’s it while experiencing it. In general conditioned response is a kind of response or a stated reaction on some stimuli that were previously neutral and now affect a person in some reflexive way. First of all, to make the notion of conditioned response more clear we should start considering it from the opposite kind of response – an unconditioned one in order not to get confused with the concepts further.

So unconditioned response can be described in the situation when, for example, we see food or feel its smell we react accordingly – we want to eat it. It is a natural response for food – to feel hunger; such kind of response is unconditioned, because its stimulus is unconditioned as well (McSweeney and Bierley 1984). But if we get used to eating while watching TV and every time we eat we obligatory watch TV, then in some time we get used to get hungry when TV would be on. The example shows that there must be some regular conditions for a person to get used to them so lately the action (eating) will become associated in a person’s mind with the condition (watching TV) and this is how conditioned response looks like.

The most widespread situations of conditioned response are phobias. People can become scared of something remembering some sad experience they have had concerning this. For example, let’s imagine some John who has a darkness phobia, because once something bad happened with him because of darkness. When John was a little child he got up at night alone in the darkness and cried, but nobody came, so he felt lost, scared, and lonely. In fact, this is the most common phobia situation which turned out into fear and loneliness every time John finds himself in darkness.

Obviously the feelings John is going through while the respond on the same stimuli are similar to those which he felt at the situation this conditioned response were acquired – the childhood loneliness in darkness. And even when John is grown up and he has forgotten about that situation, still he keeps going through the same feelings every time he is in the darkness, and he doesn’t understand the reason of these feelings. In general conditioned response (or learned reflexive response) can be learned consciously like a person can accustom oneself to the daily regimen of eating in specific hours.

And later every time the hour comes the person would feel hungry. In some situations a person responses typically to several conditions, but does it unconsciously like in the John’s example.So conditioned response is the phenomena of mind which in fact is a specific learned responding action to some concrete stimulus. We all have some potential conditioned responses in our subconscious minds, and usually act accordingly when we face with the stimuli we have previously learned the response on them.

ReferencesMcSweeney, F.K., and Bierley, C.(1984). "Recent Developments in Classical Conditioning". Journal of Consumer Research, 11, 619-631.