Conditioning is something that fascinates me. This is an educational practice started by a man named Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s. The form of conditioning Pavlov studied is known as classical conditioning. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essayClassical conditioning is the process of pairing a neutral stimulus, like a bell in Pavlov's case, with a meaningful stimulus, like food. This is a psychological phenomenon and once the coupling is sufficiently achieved, the presence of the neutral stimulus alone is strong enough to naturally trigger the behavior. Studies suggest that it is never too early to attempt to condition a person. For example, there is a study in which infants are exposed to an odor for 30 seconds while simultaneously receiving tactile stimulation similar to a caress. In this study, there were also two control groups. One of the control groups received the odor alone while the other received the stimulus, stroking, without the odor. A day later, when all of the infants were still less than 96 hours old, all of the infants experienced the same odor. Only infants who received both the odor and the stimulus the day before showed increased activity levels when presented with that odor again. The neutral stimulus, the presented odor, only made sense if it was associated with the significant, caressing stimulus. This demonstrates that classical conditioning can occur in newborns since none of the control groups showed increased signs of activity when presented with the odor. This could be useful in schools because if a teacher associates class, a neutral stimulus, with a meaningful stimulus such as high-fives or sweet aromas, children are likely to begin to associate class with good feelings and will therefore be more likely to attend. and participate. I have also experienced classical conditioning in my own life. Growing up, I was quite ill, like most other young children. My father gave me chocolate milk whenever I felt sick and told me it would make me feel better. At first, he waited until my condition improved naturally to give me the placebo, because I was skeptical about the healing properties of chocolate milk. As I got better every time I felt sick after drinking the chocolate milk, my mind automatically associated the neutral stimulus, the chocolate milk, with the unconditioned response, making me feel better. This pairing still makes me crave chocolate milk when I'm sick to this day. Although I knew that chocolate milk had no healing properties, I developed an involuntary milk craving response. A more common example of classical conditioning is what many people have experienced in advertisements. Many beer or cigarette companies feature beautiful young women in their advertisements wearing very little clothing. A significant part of the target audience of these companies has an unconditioned reaction of having a pleasant feeling towards a beautiful woman. Once associated enough times, the target audience associates the good feeling with the cigarettes or beer they want and then buys the products. In schools, there is usually a bell that rings to signal lunch time. Students automatically associate the bell, a neutral stimulus, with lunch food, a meaningful stimulus. After the pairing has been done several times, the simple sound of the bell is likely to make them hungry. I have,.