Word.ws English Dictionary

counterconditioning

counterconditioning noun: a form of conditioning in which a negative response to a stimulus is replaced by a positive one.

Noun

counterconditioning (uncountable)

  1. A form of conditioning in which a negative response to a stimulus is replaced by a positive one.
    • This is called classic counterconditioning because it involves countering the association that was previously classically conditioned.[2015, Ilona Rodan, Sarah Heath, editors, Feline Behavioral Health and Welfare, Elsevier Health Sciences, →ISBN, page 43
    • Counterconditioning involves pairing something that the cat thinks is a positive thing (food, play, distance, etc.) with the presence of the scary stimulus.2015, chapter 13, in Emily Weiss, Heather Mohan-Gibbons, Stephen Zawistowski, editors, Animal Behavior for Shelter Veterinarians and Staff, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 262

Origin of counterconditioning

From counter- + conditioning.

Questions about counterconditioning

What does counterconditioning mean?
Counterconditioning means a form of conditioning in which a negative response to a stimulus is replaced by a positive one.
What part of speech is counterconditioning?
Counterconditioning is a noun.

Words near counterconditioning in the dictionary

  1. counterconclusions
  2. countercondemnation
  3. countercondemnations
  4. countercondition
  5. counterconditioned
  6. counterconditioning
  7. counterconquest
  8. counterconquests
  9. counterconspiracies
  10. counterconspiracy
  11. counterconvention

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counterconditioning (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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