Conditioned Hunger

Hunger is a Habit

In the 1890s, famed Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was studying dogs who naturally salivate when they saw food. Astutely, he noted that the dogs began to salivate before seeing the food, when they saw the lab technician who normally brought it. The dogs learned that seeing the technician meant food was coming, and the dogs salivated in anticipation. The neutral stimulus, the technician, could provoke a conditioned response.

Pavlov undertook further experiments to pair another neutral stimulus, a bell ringing, with food. Soon the ringing of the bell would trigger salivation in the dogs, because they expected food. This is known as a learned, or conditioned response. Pavlov’s dogs help revolutionize our understanding of behaviors, habits and reflexes.

Cephalic Hunger

Why does this matter? Because hunger is also a conditioned response. We have learned through countless repetition that we eat three times a day, based on the time, no matter how hunger we are, and our hunger rises according to match.