Classical conditioning is a wonderful form of therapy which involves studying the condition that predicts that a spesific event will occur. Humans acquire a lot of their behavior through classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves different learning principles, which include: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalisation and discrimination(Sarma, 2010). It has being proved by tests, that classical conditioning will only occur when the conditional stimulus is a reliable predictor of the unconditional stimulus. …show more content…
Classical conditioning can develope phobias, for example, if a parent has a fear of snakes the child can develop that fear just by observing the signs of fear that his or her parent is expressing. It is possible for classical conditioning to occur without direct experience with the conditional and unconditional stimulus(Sarma, 2010). There is no need for the child to be attacked by the snake. Therefor, human beings can acquire phobias vicariously-by hearing or even reading different types of stories that portray unpleasant episodes. The imaginary episode that is pictured as the story (unconditional stimulus) if read or heard is able to give imagionary stimuli (conidtional stimuli) that result in emotional responses (conditional reponses)(Sarma, …show more content…
The child would then portray a sence of fear or unrest whenever they then saw the dog. Systematic desensitization can occur in this situation if everytime the child comes in close contact or even touches the dog, they then recieve a special treat such as a lolly pop or chocolate to reward them for being in contact with the dog. As a result the child would then learn to associate the dog with recieving special treats, therefore the child would want to remain in contact with the dog on a regular basis in order to get the treats, which would result in the child 's fear of the dog completely