conditioned response

noun

Psychology.

1. a response that becomes associated with a previously unrelated stimulus as a result of pairing the stimulus with another stimulus normally yielding the response.

conditioned response

noun

1. Also called (esp formerly): conditioned reflex. psychol a response that is transferred from the second to the first of a pair of stimuli. A well-known Pavlovian example is salivation by a dog when it hears a bell ring, because food has always been presented when the bell has been rung previously See also classical conditioning unconditioned response

conditioned response

1. In psychology, the response made by a person or animal after learning to associate an experience with a neutral or arbitrary stimulus. Conditioned response experiments by Ivan Pavlov (see Pavlov's dogs) paired a neutral stimulus (sounding a bell) with a natural response (salivating) by associating the bell with the presentation of food. Conditioned response experiments by B. F. Skinner and other behaviorists (see behaviorism) associated an arbitrary action (an animal's pressing a lever) with a positive reward (presentation of food) or a negative reward (an electric shock).

Response conditioning is used in behavior modification. Stop-smoking clinics, for example, may use an electric shock whenever a patient lights up. The patient will then associate smoking with the unpleasant experience of the shock.

Word History and Origins

Origin of conditioned response¹

First recorded in 1930–35