The fundamental distinction between respondent and operant conditioning is:
A) Whether the response is an automatic response or one that is conditional on a stimulus
B) Whether the response involves skeletal muscles or glands
C) Whether the contingency involves the whole organism or whether only certain muscles/glands are activated
D) Whether the conditioning involved the correlation of stimuli or a contingency between response and consequence

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The fundamental distinction between respondent and operant conditioning lies in the nature of how behaviors are learned: respondent conditioning involves the correlation of stimuli (as in Pavlovian conditioning), while operant conditioning is based on a contingency between a response and its consequence (as in Skinner's work), emphasizing the role of reinforcement or punishment following the behavior.

The Fundamental Distinction Between Respondent and Operant Conditioning Is