conditional proposition See CONDITIONAL, CON -. VERSE , COUNTERFACTUAL. conditioning, a form of associative learning that occurs when changes in thought or behavior are produced by temporal relations among events. It is common to distinguish between two types of conditioning; one, classical or Pavlovian, in which behavior change results from events that occur before behavior; the other, operant or instrumental, in which behavior change occurs because of events after behavior. Roughly, classically and operantly conditioned behavior correspond to the everyday, folk-psychological distinction between involuntary and voluntary or goaldirected behavior. In classical conditioning, stimuli or events elicit a response (e.g., salivation); neutral stimuli (e.g., a dinner bell) gain control over behavior when paired with stimuli that already elicit behavior (e.g., the appearance of dinner). The behavior is involuntary. In operant conditioning, stimuli or events reinforce behavior after behavior occurs; neutral stimuli gain power to reinforce by being paired with actual reinforcers. Here, occasions in which behavior is reinforced serve as discriminative stimuli-evoking behavior. Operant behavior is goal-directed, if not consciously or deliberately, then through the bond between behavior and reinforcement. Thus, the arrangement of condiments at dinner may serve as the discriminative stimulus evoking the request ‘Please pass the salt,’ whereas saying ‘Thank you’ may reinforce the behavior of passing the salt.
It is not easy to integrate conditioning phenomena into a unified theory of conditioning. Some theorists contend that operant conditioning is really classical conditioning veiled by subtle temporal relations among events. Other theorists contend that operant conditioning requires mental representations of reinforcers and discriminative stimuli. B. F. Skinner (1904– 90) argued in Walden Two (1948) that astute, benevolent behavioral engineers can and should use conditioning to create a social utopia.
See also REDINTEGRATION. G.A.G.