Comparing Classical and Operant Conditioning

PSY 211

Comparing Classical and Operant Conditioning

I will be comparing classical and operant conditioning by explaining fear of heights. Fear of heights is known as Acrophobia. The phobia part does not occur until a person is in an environment that most people would be relatively fine in, such as attending a theme park or being in a building such as a sky scraper for example. Most of the time when treating someone with acrophobia therapists will use graded exposure therapy.

Any fear starts by learning, so if a person has a fear of heights it is most likely due to an event that happened early on in life that made a dramatic change in the persons every day behavior, such as falling out of a tree at a young age. If a person has a severe...