Example and criticism of classical conditioning

An example of Classical Conditioning can be, for instance, when you smell a perfume and you associate it with a person. The perfume is the neutral stimulus, but as you smell it always in a specific person, each time that you smell it, even if it is not that person  who is wearing it, your conditioned response is to think in that person.

Classical Conditioning has been criticised because it claims that everything can be learned, it does not give any importance to the nature of a person. In addition, it is reductionist, it explains human behaviour by breaking it in small parts, but, a disadvantage of this is that it can make it too simple. Lastly, it is deterministic, this is to say, it does not take in account  free will. In spite of this, it uses the scientific method to prove its theory.

References

McLeod, S. (2015). Classical Conditioning | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html [Accessed 19 Nov. 2015].

McLeod, S. (2015). Reductionism and Holism in Psychology | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: http://www.simplypsychology.org/reductionism-holism.html [Accessed 19 Nov. 2015].