ABSTRACT
When introducing students to psychology, I am constantly striving to make each topic come alive for them. One of the topics that is not only easy to demonstrate but is also capable of sparking a good deal of enthusiasm in students is classical conditioning. In my introductory psychology classes, I have tried several types of classical conditioning demonstrations. I have demonstrated the conditioned eye blink, which never worked very well and was hard for the students in the back row to see. 1 have taught students how to condition their dogs to salivate to a tone (Pavlov, 1927), and brought my pet basset hound into class as living proof that dogs really can be taught to drool on command. (Most of my students thought this was disgusting, so I never did it again.) I even considered duplicating John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner’s (1920) Little Albert experiment, but the college child care center pointed out that the California child abuse laws specifically prohibit its replication. After several such failures and near misses, I finally found a classical conditioning demonstration that is effective, sanitary, and legal. This article describes that demonstration, which has proven to be not only effective but also fun for me and my students.
