Question

Convincing people to engage in healthier behaviors, such as exercising regularly, is a challenge. How could you use classical conditioning to create more positive associations with a healthy behavior?

Answer 1

Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the ability to produce a response that was originally produced by a different stimulus. Three core concepts in classical conditioning are conditioned response, unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response. In the current scenario, convincing people to engage in exercising regularly would act as neutral stimulus initially which would lead to a healthy behavior. This healthy behavior could be regarded as an unconditioned response. Through repeated pairing or assosciation of a positive feeling following the exercising, the response which was previously unconditioned would then turn to be a conditioned response following the conditioned stimulus. Once the pattern or assosciation (that exercising leads to healthy behavior) is learned or experienced, the classical conditioning is said to have happened.