We have seen that classical conditioning is not just a neat way to get dogs to salivate; it affects crucial aspects of our behavior, including fear, sexual arousal, and drug addiction. Our goal in this chapter, therefore, will be to gain a deeper understanding of conditioning. We will begin by looking at the principles of conditioning: What factors determine how strongly a response will be conditioned? We will then look at theories of conditioning: What is the nature of the learning processes that eventually produce the drops of salivation or the surge in fear? Along the way, we will encounter issues such as whether people can be conditioned without their awareness, why advertising is effective, and why basketball coaches sometimes fundamentally misunderstand their sport!

Principles of conditioning

The British Associationists, sitting in their armchairs several centuries ago, identified a number of laws of association, of which the most important were contiguity, frequency, and intensity. We will begin our survey of the principles of conditioning by considering the extent to which these laws have been supported by experiments.