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Identify the statement that BEST demonstrates the concept of classical conditioning.



Stewart splurges and buys his fiancé numerous gifts for her birthday because he wants to show her how special she is.



Roxanne finds that she is no longer able to collect hummingbird pictures, ornaments, and statues as she did before she and her previous husband had a painful break up and divorce. They no longer bring her the joy they once did and only remind her of a painful time in her life.



Anthony wants to go to graduate school, so he has been spending a lot of time studying and doing extracurricular activities to build up his resume and application. He is exhausted most of the time but believes it will all pay off in the end.



Mary is frustrated at her daughter’s unwillingness to keep her bedroom clean. After repeated attempts to get her daughter to be responsible, she finally blows up in a fit of anger and takes away her cell phone and her car for the remainder of the school year.

Answer 1

OPTION B.

Roxanne's change of emotional response towards hummingbird items due to her painful breakup is an example of classical conditioning, where a previously neutral stimulus gets associated with a new, often involuntary, response after being repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Step-by-step explanation:

The statement that BEST demonstrates the concept of classical conditioning is: Roxanne finds that she is no longer able to collect hummingbird pictures, ornaments, and statues as she did before she and her previous husband had a painful break up and divorce. They no longer bring her the joy they once did and only remind her of a painful time in her life.

In this scenario, the hummingbird items (conditioned stimulus, CS) which used to be associated with happiness (unconditioned response, UCR) are now associated with the distress of a painful breakup (conditioned response, CR). This is because the pleasant emotions from her past relationship (unconditioned stimulus, UCS) are now replaced with the negativity of the divorce when Roxanne interacts with those items. This change in emotional response due to the association is a core aspect of classical conditioning.

An example contrasting with classical conditioning is operant conditioning, which involves learning through the consequences of behavior, such as rewarding a dog for sitting with a treat to reinforce that behavior. This is different from classical conditioning, where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a reflexive, involuntary response through repeated pairing with an unconditioned stimulus.

Answer 2

The statement exemplifying classical conditioning involves Roxanne associating hummingbird items with a painful breakup, resulting in sadness when she encounters them. This is a classic example where a once neutral stimulus is linked to an emotion, showing the process of associating two stimuli and a corresponding response. Therefore, the correct option is B.

Step-by-step explanation:

The statement that BEST demonstrates the concept of classical conditioning is "Roxanne finds that she is no longer able to collect hummingbird pictures, ornaments, and statues as she did before she and her previous husband had a painful break up and divorce. They no longer bring her the joy they once did and only remind her of a painful time in her life." This is because classical conditioning involves the association of a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response. Here, the once neutral hummingbird items (conditioned stimulus) are now associated with the pain of a breakup (unconditioned stimulus), leading to Roxanne's current feeling of sadness (conditioned response) when she sees them.

Classical conditioning was famously demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov's experiments, where the sound of a bell (conditioned stimulus) was paired with the presentation of food (unconditioned stimulus) to elicit salivation (conditioned response) in dogs. When compared to operant conditioning, which involves learning the association between a behavior and its consequence, classical conditioning is about learning the association between two stimuli. Another real-world application can be seen when someone who repeatedly becomes sick after chemotherapy (unconditioned response to the unconditioned stimulus of the drugs) starts feeling nauseous just by entering the doctor's office (conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus of the office environment).