Who discovered classical conditioning by teaching dogs to salivate in response to the ringing of a bell?

• A. B. F. Skinner
• B. Ivan Pavlov
• C. John B. Watson
• D. Edward Thorndike

Answer: (B)

Ivan Pavlov. He showed that a neutral stimulus can come to elicit a reflexive response after being paired repeatedly with a stimulus that naturally triggers that response. In his dog experiments, the ringing bell was paired with food, which naturally makes dogs salivate. After several pairings, the bell alone caused salivation, so the bell became a conditioned stimulus and the salivation a conditioned response. This discovery contrasts with different learning ideas from others, like Skinner’s focus on operant conditioning and Thorndike’s Law of Effect, but Pavlov is the one who demonstrated classical conditioning.