What does conditioned mean?
Conditioned describes something — most often a person or animal — that has been brought into a particular state or pattern of behavior through training, repetition, or experience rather than by conscious choice. The word is central to psychology, where Ivan Pavlov's experiments on digestion gave rise to the term 'conditioned response': a learned reaction to a stimulus that originally had no effect. Beyond the laboratory, the word appears widely in everyday and figurative contexts, from athletes described as well-conditioned to opinions dismissed as culturally conditioned. It can carry a subtle implication that the person's responses are automatic or unexamined, which makes it useful both neutrally, as in physical fitness, and critically, as in discussions of social attitudes. Related terms include conditioning, the process itself, and conditioner, its more mechanical sense in hair care.
Shaped or trained into a particular state or pattern of behavior by experience or deliberate training.
"A conditioned athlete responds to fatigue with steady pacing rather than panic."
Past tense and past participle of the verb 'to condition', meaning to bring into a desired state through training, treatment, or preparation.
"She conditioned the leather until it was supple again."
This form is common with objects as well as people, as in conditioning hair, leather, or soil.
Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to salivate at a bell — and thanks to him, 'conditioned response' is one of the few dictionary phrases born straight out of a laboratory.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of conditioned
Conditioned derives ultimately from the Latin 'condicere', meaning 'to agree upon', via the Old French and Middle English noun 'condition', which entered English around the fourteenth century. The past participle 'conditioned' came to describe something brought into a specified state, and in the early twentieth century Pavlov's work on classical conditioning fixed its modern psychological sense. Its cognates include the adjective 'conditional' and the noun 'precondition'.
Related word forms
How conditioned is actually used
In psychology, 'conditioned' is a precise technical term contrasted with 'unconditioned'; outside psychology it often carries an implication of involuntary or habitual shaping, sometimes with a mildly negative connotation when describing beliefs described as culturally conditioned.
Easily confused with conditioned
Conditioned means shaped or trained into a state, while conditional means dependent on a stipulated requirement being met.