I wanted to talk about three types of learning that form part of behavioural theory and which many early psychologists believed to be the only truly scientific way of studying the mind. This is because behaviours are observable and can be measured. The three types have been termed, classical, operant and observational conditioning. By understanding how conditioning shapes the way me learn we can also hypothesise about other forms of behaviour such as how we develop phobias.

Classical conditioning as developed by Pavlov (1927/1960) shows us how we learn my association. An example might be when a child learns to associate the sound of an ice-cream van with the action of eating ice-cream. This type of association includes conditioned stimuli (the ice cream van music) and a conditioned response (the child getting excited about eating ice cream). We could use this same example to show how the same child might obtain a phobia of ice-cream vans. The child, instead of associating the music to eating ice cream might instead associate it to being run over by an ice cream van (apologies for the example). The child may develop a phobia as a result classical conditioning.

Operant conditioning is a form of learning association first developed by Skinner (1959) and suggests that behaviour is determined by experiencing desirable / non desirable effects that result from particular actions. It might be possible for phobias to develop in a situation where a behaviour that results in something non desirable has taken place. I might for example develop a phobia of electricity / household appliances after touching a live wire whilst attempting to rewire a plug without first turning the power off. The effect of being electrocuted is likely to teach me that I should always turn the power off in future but the effect may have been so traumatic that I develop an irrational fear of all household appliances! The complete reverse of this theory and one which leads to feelings of pleasure instead of a potential phobia could be when we have orgasms during sex. The desirable effect of love making leads us to want to do it again. I guess the same thing could lead to a phobia if the sex was a complete disaster!!

Observational conditioning seeks to explain how we learn through observation. A simple example might be how a lion cub learns to hunt by observing the actions of his mother. This type of conditioning might explain how we develop some of the most common phobias. Lots of people for example are afraid of spiders. Perhaps the reason why so many of us are afraid is because we have witnessed the distress and angst of so many others in the presence of spiders! Although entirely possible others might suggest that such fears are evolutionary. We may for example have an evolutionary advantage of being afraid / wary of spiders.

The development of phobias could manifest themselves through conditional behaviour either consciously or subconsciously. Behaviours that we learn as a baby or a small child for example might not be remembered directly but may remain imprinted on our minds at a subconscious level. The experiment that Watson & Rayner (1920) undertook involving a little baby called Jack for example could have resulted in Jack having a phobia of rats and yet he may never know why he had the phobia!