Pavlov’s Bell: Changing Associations - a podcast by Ty Brown

I want to talk about Pavlov. Many people remember hearing about Pavlov in school, and some of you even studied him in depth. If you don't know who he is, go do a quick Google search and find out some more about him, because he was a transformative figure in the study of behavioral theory.


Pavlov was a Russian scientist who studied conditioning. He would ring a bell and give a treat, over and over again through a long period of time. This is his most famous experiment, and a good number of people know him for it. What happened? Over time, the sound of the bell became loaded: the sound itself had a lot of meaning to the dogs. If they heard it, they would start to salivate. The sound alone initiated a physical response.


So the joke I always make is this: what if Pavlov had been a jerk? He’s done all this work to make the dogs salivate when they hear the bell. What if he had tried to mess around with them? Imagine that he had rung the bell and then smacked the dog in the face. How many times would he need to do that before the dog started to cower and flinch every time he rang the bell? I don’t know the answer, because I’ve obviously never done this and never will. But I would guess that it wouldn't take too many repetitions for a dog to begin to dislike the sound of the bell, even if they had positive associations with it before.


I’m sharing this hypothetical situation because it helps people realize how quickly dogs can change associations when things are presented in the correct way. This story comes in particularly handy when talking about doorbell manners. Without trying, most people have turned the doorbell into a loaded sound for their dog. Every time the doorbell rings, something of interest appears on the other side. Much like a bell that signals food, a doorbell can create a physical response such as barking or becoming aggressive.

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