Chapter six focused on the idea of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning was discovered by Ivan Pavlov. He was researching digestion in dogs when he discovered that dogs can become conditioned with food. Basically, the dog pairs a neutral stimulus with another stimulus and it elicits an automatic response. This video explains it a little better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7jcI8fAuI
Classical conditioning is often seen in advertising. One common example is a company showing a famous celebrity using their product and hoping that people will buy their product because people think that the famous celebrity is using it also. Extensive research has shown that this works very well and is a very successful marketing technique. Finally, this chapter talks a little bit about different kinds of reinforcement. Different types of reinforcement such as positive and negative reinforcement have had a huge impact on the type of people that we have become. Often times we don't even realize that types of reinforcement are being used on us. This chapter goes on to explain why we act in certain ways and why people do certain things. Have you witnessed any examples of classical conditioning recently?
Good recap of the chapter. We'll be looking at the relationship between classical conditioning and ads in a few weeks in discussion section!