Conditioned emotional response (CER)

A conditioned emotional response (CER) is a feeling that a person or animal has after exposure to some sort of outside stimulus. The response is the result of experiencing something at the same time or shortly after the stimulus enough times that the mind connects the stimulus and the feeling. The stimulus can be something positive or negative; therefore, the conditioned emotional responses can also be positive or negative in nature. Conditioned responses are factors in many human behaviors, including phobias and many less intense fears. However, conditioned emotional responses can also be used to favorable effects, such as training people or animals to respond in positive ways.

Background

Conditioned responses happen because of the way the brain works. When a person or animal has an experience, the stimuli associated with it travel through the nervous system to the brain. The brain encodes all the stimuli and the body’s responses to it as memories. These memories can be pleasant and positive, such as the way it smelled at home when a favorite meal was cooking, or unpleasant and negative, such as the way the neighborhood smelled after a fire. The brain associates these stimuli with the emotions that accompanied them and stores the memories together. Psychology experts call this conditioning, because the body is conditioned, or trained, to interpret the stimuli in a specific way.

The effects of these types of conditioning on human and animal behavior were studied extensively by psychologists beginning in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. One of the most famous researchers to work with conditioning was Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov is best known for his experiments that taught dogs to salivate when a bell was rung. He did this by feeding them and ringing the bell at the same time. The dogs salivated when the bell rang because they were eating. Eventually, Pavlov was able to make them salivate at the sound of bell even when food was not present. This is called classical conditioning.

Other researchers demonstrated that it was possible to condition people to have emotional responses to stimuli in the same way that the dogs were trained to have a physical response. In an experiment that was within the ethical standards of the 1920s but would no longer be permitted, researchers exposed a young baby they called Little Albert to various items, including a white rat, a mask of Santa Claus, and a furry white coat. Initially, the child exhibited only interest and curiosity in the items. However, when the researchers used a hammer and a metal bar to make a loud noise behind Albert’s head at the same time they showed him the white rat, he began to cry and show other signs of fear. Eventually, he displayed what psychologists call generalization when he reacted with fear to any white furry object, including the mask and the coat. The experiment was an unethical but very successful demonstration of conditioned emotional response.

Overview

Conditioned emotional responses are an example of associative learning. The response is the result of the brain associating the action or stimuli with the reaction or emotion. The reactions can be positive emotions, such as joy, happiness, or excitement, or negative, such as sadness, anxiety, or fear. The negative emotions that result in sadness, stress, and fear are often the result of the body’s fight or flight response.

This is an automated response that originates in the amygdala. The amygdala is a small area of the brain that serves as a control center for emotions and is also the brain’s alarm system. When something that generates a response of fear or danger is perceived, the amygdala sends out signals that tell the body to prepare to either fight the danger or flee from it. This can happen whether the stimulus is real, such as a snake in a path, or not, such as a picture of a snake.

People and animals can develop conditioned emotional responses to many things that affect all of the senses. For example, a dog may get very excited when it sees its owner pick up a leash because it knows a walk is coming, while a child may become very happy when hearing the music from an ice cream truck. The same stimulus can even be both positive and negative, depending on what the person has been conditioned to experience. For instance, someone who is waiting for a check or a letter from a loved one will have a positive response to the sight of the mail truck outside the home, while someone who has many unpaid bills might feel nothing but anxiety at the same sight.

Such conditioned responses are at the root of phobias, the strong fears some people develop about things such as heights, dogs, flying, clowns, and other things. However, the same process that results in conditioned emotional responses can also be used to help alter or extinguish the conditioned response. These fears can be overcome with reason—such as knowing that the snake is just a picture, or that it is not a poisonous snake—or by taking advantage of the conditioning process. For instance, a person might be exposed to the snake several times without anything negative happening. This can condition the person’s emotional response to one that is not fearful. The same technique is often used to help eliminate other conditioned emotional responses. For example, a person who is afraid to fly might slowly increase his or her exposure to planes and flight before planning a trip to somewhere he or she has always wanted to go. The flight then becomes associated with a pleasant trip, not the previous fears.

Conditioned emotional responses are important because they are a factor in so many aspects of life. In addition to the role they play in everyday experiences, conditioned emotional responses are part of the prejudices and responses individuals have to others. The experiences one individual has with another creates the same sort of stimulus-response connections that the brain forms from all other types of stimuli. This means that the type of interaction a person has with a person of another race, religion, or culture can impact future interactions with other people from that same race, religion, or culture. Understanding the role conditioned emotional response plays in relating to others can help minimize or eliminate prejudices or discrimination.

Bibliography

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Conger, Anthony J., et al. “Conditioned Emotional Responses in Racial Prejudice.” Ethics and Racial Studies, vol. 35, no. 2, July 2011, pp. 298–319.

DeAngelis, T. “Little Albert Regains His Identity.” American Psychological Association,2010, www.apa.org/monitor/2010/01/little-albert.aspx. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.

Farriceli, Adrienne Janet. “Conditioned Emotional Responses in Dogs.” Pet Helpful, 19 Feb. 2018, pethelpful.com/dogs/Conditioned-Emotional-Responses-in-Dog-Training-and-Behavior-Modification. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.

“Ivan Petrovich Pavlov.” Nobel Prize, www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1904/pavlov/biographical/. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.

“The Little Albert Experiment: The Perverse 1920 Study That Made a Baby Afraid of Santa Claus and Bunnies.” Open Culture, 29 Jan. 2015, www.openculture.com/2015/01/the-little-albert-experiment.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.

McLeod, Saul. “Classical Conditioning.” Simply Psychology, www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html. Accessed 1 Oct. 2018.

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