Every time a boy visited his grandfather, he would pass a house with a large dog in the yard that would bark and scare the boy. Years later, the boy becomes anxious whenever he visits his grandfather, even though the dog is no longer there. The boy learned to become anxious in this situation through which process?

a) classical conditioning

b) operant conditioning

c) observational learning

d) punishment

Answer:a) classical conditioning

Explanation:

For a classical conditioning to occur there must be an unconditioned stimulus first which will trigger a natural response.

There are three basic phases of this process:

Phase 1: Before Conditioning

There is a natural stimulus which triggers natural response such as when the dog start drooling at the smell of food.

Unconditioned stimulus which is food presentation is producing drooling which is an unconditioned response.

In our case unconditioned stimulus is the dog barking and unconditioned response is the fear from the boy.

At the beginning there is no neutral stimulus until the boy begins to relate unconditioned stimulus with the neutral stimulus after then the neutral stimulus will start to evoke the same feeling of fear

Phase 2: During Conditioning

This is when an individual begins to associate the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus this association between the two result to them having the same effect on an individual, the previously known neutral stimulus now becomes conditioned stimulus because it's association with the unconditioned stimulus enables it to cause the same effect on an individual. Our previous neutral stimulus in our case is the visit to grandfather.

Phase 3: After Conditioning

Now this is when the conditioned stimulus is able to act alone in evoking the same feeling caused by the unconditioned stimulus even when the UCS is now removed now this response is conditioned response, which refers to the now learned response through conditioned stimulus.

The boy now knows that going to grandfather he has always faced this barking dog and as result of this association he fears the conditioned stimulus (visiting grandfather) now even when the unconditioned stimulus (the barking dog) is no longer there.

Answer: A

Explanation: classical conditioning is a type if learning whereby a conditioned event becomes associated with an unrelated unconditioned event, to produce a responsive behavior known as a conditioned response an example of such conditioned event is the passage of that yard were the dog is situated and that makes him scared regularly which makes him anxious (unrelated) which is a responsive behavior that is conditioned based on his anxiety that he will meet that dog and it will bark at him.

This makes option A the best suited answer for the passage.