Classical Conditioning

A photograph taken during the Little Albert experiment

Classical conditioning is a type of automatic learning where associations are made between a natural response to a stimulus and a previously neutral stimulus, after they are paired together several times. Ivan Pavlov first studied classical conditioning, and expanded his research to discover other principles such as generalization, discrimination, and spontaneous recovery. Later, J.B. Watson conditioned a baby to fear objects that were initially neutral to him, proving that humans also learn through classical conditioning.