02-19-2003, 01:05 PM
Pavlovian conditioning is often considered to be involuntary. The organism has little control over the response, in that the environment elicits the behavior from the organism. Operant behavior involves voluntary behavior that is emitted by the organism is controlled by its consequences (hence the term consequated). Another way of looking at this difference is to look at the relationship between behavior and the environment. In Pavlovian conditioning, the relationship is stimulus-response (SR), but in operant it is response-stimulus (RS). Whether responses occur in the future depend upon the nature of the contingency. If it makes life better for the organism, it will likely occur again in the future (reinforcement), and if it makes life worse, it will likely not occur again in the future (punishment).