How to Explain Behaviorism, version 1: Operant and Classical Conditioning
Operant and classical conditioning are two different ways in which organisms come to reflect the order of the environment around them. They are not perfect processes and they certainly cannot explain facet of human and non-human behavior. That said, they are surprisingly reliable processes, and they can explain much, much, more about human and non-human behavior than anyone would have thought before extensive study of those processes began.
It is probably best to think about operant and classical conditioning as offering two different types of developmental stories. They are not stories about what a behavior is, now, but rather stories about how that behavior got to be that way. Classical conditioning stories are about things happening around the animal, no matter what the animal does. Operant conditioning stories involve consequences of the animal's action, i.e., what happens when the animal operates upon the world as an active agent. There is some debate about whether we need two types of stories. There are good reasons to go either way, including some recent genetic evidence that they can be disentangled. None of that really matters here; all that matters is that you understand the two types of stories and their consequences for future behavior.
What did is the difference between classical conditioning and operant conditioning?
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