Jim vs Dwight: Another day in The Office

Classical conditioning can happen to any person; even actors. Jim mentions a scientist that he learned about who taught dogs to salivate at the ding of a bell. That scientist was Ivan Pavlov and the experiment was a little more complex and had more meaning than Jim's.In an episode of the office, Jim shows us an example of both classical and operant conditioning. He actually only intended to use operant conditioning against Dwight but both ended up showing up in Jim's experiment.

We can conclude that operant conditioning was used because Dwight had to show a response (putting his hand out) in order to get a reward (the mint). Operant conditioning is classified by our textbook as learning controlled by the consequences of the organsim's behavior. Thus saying that the organism (Dwight) must show some sort of response or action in order to receive the reward. Dwight also fell fool for classical conditioning. In my opinion, I don't think Jim knew he was even going to make Dwight have the bad taste in his mouth afterwards. (Obviously he knew since it is a T.V. show, but in reality most people would only look for the response). The book describes many types of stimuli and responses and all of them are shown in the video. The unconditioned stimulus was the noise Jim's computer made when he rebooted it. That, at first, had no effect on Dwight. Then the unconditioned response was the taste Dwight got in his mouth after he took the mint. After many trials of this, Jim reboots his computer and all of a sudden, conditioned stimulus, Dwight sticks out his arm due to operant conditioning and Jim makes Dwight look dumbfounded. After not receiving the mint, Dwight gets a nasty taste in his mouth which is the conditioned response.

This video shows us that anybody can be conditioned in many different ways. Be aware of what people are doing before they give you a snack because you may be the one getting conditioned!