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Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes
Table 9.1: Unconditioned Reflexes
UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS (US) UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE (UR)

Food Salivation
Onion Juice Tears
Heat Sweating
Loud Noise Startle

Light in Eye Contraction of Pupil
Puff of air in eye Blink.
Touching hot stove Hand withdrawal

Elements and Processes in Classical Conditioning

Reflex: A reflex is an involuntary response to a particular stimulus. There are two kinds of
reflexes:
1. Conditioned Reflex: This is a "learned" reflex rather than a naturally occurring one.
2. Unconditioned Reflex: This is a "unlearned" reflex. Example, Salivation in response to
food. Unconditioned reflex are built into the nervous system.
Conditioned and Unconditioned Stimulus and Response: Pavlov continued to investigate the
circumstances under which a conditioned reflex is formed. Dogs do not need to be conditioned
to salivate to food, so salivation of food is an unlearned or unconditioned response (UR). Any
stimulus (such as food) that without learning will automatically elicit (bring forth) an
unconditioned response is called an unconditioned stimulus (US).
A reflex is made up of both a stimulus and response. Following is a list of some common
unconditioned reflexes, showing their two components – the unconditioned stimulus and
unconditioned response.

Factors Influencing Classical Conditioning

There are four major factors that affect the strength of a classically conditioned response and the
length of time required for conditioning.
1. The number of pairings of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditional stimulus. In
general, the greater the number of pairings, the stronger the conditioned response.

2. The intensity of the unconditioned stimulus. If a conditioned stimulus is paired with a
very strong unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response will be stronger and will
be acquired more rapidly than if it is paired with a weaker unconditioned stimulus.
3. The most important factor is how reliably the conditioned stimulus predicts the
unconditioned stimulus. Rescorla has shown that classical conditioning does not occur
automatically just because a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with an unconditioned
stimulus. The neutral stimulus must also reliably predict the occurrence of the
unconditioned stimulus. For example, a tone that is always followed by food will elicit
more salivation than one that is followed by food only some of the time.

4. The temporal relationship between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned
stimulus. Conditioning takes place faster if the conditioned stimulus occurs shortly before

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