Outline the types of conditioning covered in learning theories.

The basic type of conditioning is classical conditioning first demonstrated by Pavlov and his dogs whereby Pavlov demonstrated an association between a bell and the giving of food, resulting in the dogs being conditioned to salivate when a bell sound was made. This conditioning is done by the food (unconditioned stimulus) and the bell (neutral stimulus) being paired which results in salivation (unconditioned response) and once this association has been made and has become strong, the dogs will salivate (conditioned response) to the bell (conditioned stimulus) without the presence of food. A famous study conducted by Watson and Rayner demonstrated the use of classical conditioning to condition 'Little Albert' to fear furry animals and develop a phobia.Operant conditioning can also be used to condition subjects but instead there is the involvement of rewards and punishments. For example, an experimenter may want a rat to learn to press a lever when a red light is being displayed and will reward the rat with primary reinforcers, such as food, to reinforce the behaviour of pressing a lever when this red light stimulus is presented. On the other hand, the rat could also be punished for pressing the lever at a different time and may have something pleasant taken away (negative punishment) or adding an unpleasant stimuli to the rat (positive punishment).