ABSTRACT
This chapter describes differences between operant and respondent responses. The principles of respondent and operant conditioning form the basis of behavior modification. Operant behaviors are behaviors that influence the environment to produce consequences and that are affected, in turn, by those consequences. The chapter provides an example of a behavioral sequence that involves both respondent and operant conditioning. Emotion researchers recognize that there are several sides or components to any emotion. There is the feeling component, which is internal, private, and subjective; and there is an overt, public, and objective component. The respondent component of emotions involves primarily the three major classes of respondents—reflexes of the digestive system, the circulatory system, and the respiratory system. These reflexes are controlled by the part of human nervous system referred to as the autonomic nervous system. Imagining or conditioned seeing constitutes one type of thinking. Another type of thinking is self-directed verbal behavior, or self-talk.
