Reference no: EM133537892

Compare and contrast operant and respondent conditioning when it comes to aversives.

Think about something in your life that you avoid at all costs - a food, a drink, an area of town - why is that? How were you conditioned to engage in that avoidance? Consider what the stimulus was and how it was paired to become an aversive.

Example: My colleague has many food allergies, one being dairy. As much as she would enjoys dairy, it makes her feel very ill almost instantly and she has given up even trying with medication. A friend of hers went as far as calling her "high maintenance" at a holiday event because of her choice to avoid foods that make her ill.

In this example: the dairy was once a neutral stimulus but became a conditioned stimulus given the impact it had on her almost instantly from consumption.