Carl takes his 1-year-old son Reynold out for a walk. Reynold reaches over to touch a red flower and is stung by a bumblebee sitting on the petals. The next day, Reynold's mother brings home some red flowers. She removes a flower from the arrangement and takes it over for her baby to smell. Reynold cries loudly as soon as he sees it. According to the principles of classical conditioning, what is the conditioned response in this example?

The conditioned response in this example is Reynold crying.

Explanation:

A conditioned response is a learned behavior that comes along with a conditioned stimulus. In other words, a conditioned response is not a natural, automatic response to something, but a response learned because of something that has happened previously.

A red flower was originally a neutral stimulus. However, since Reynold was stung by a bee while reaching over to touch the flower, he has associated it with the pain of being stung. The flower is no longer a neutral stimulus; it has become a conditioned one. It now triggers a conditioned response: crying. Crying is not an automatic response to flowers. It is a learned response that comes from the experience of feeling pain while touching a flower.