Practical applications of Classical Conditioning

Flooding

prolonged exposure to feared stimulus. providing ax opportunity for conditioned fear response to be extinguished. Principle of extinction, not counter conditioning. Sufficiently long (30-45+ min) otherwise fear will become stronger

Medical applications

-immune system. Women who received chemo in hospital setting displayed evidence of immunosuppression when they later returned to hospital. -placebo effect.

Aversion therapy example

Alcohol taste paired with shocks or nausea. Nausea more affective because biological tendency to associate nausea with substances we ingest.

Systematic Desensitization examle

Feeding a baby cookies while presenting a rabbit (phobia) at distance. Successive sessions- rabbit brought closer to baby

Counter conditioning. recipricol inhibition

Occurrence of IR can be inhibited by occurrence of an umcompatible response. Can be done with visual imagery (imaginal desensitization vs invivo desensitization)

Aversion Therapy

Reduces attractiveness of desired event by associating it with an adversive stimulus. Sometimes carried out with use of imaginal stimuli rather than real stimuli-covert sensitization. Depends on clients ability to visualize images

Systematic Desensitization

Wople 1958. 1. Train to relax 2. create a hierarchy of imaginary scenes (fear) 3. pair each item in hierarchy with relaxation. Counter conditioning. reciprocal inhibition.

phobias

adaptive proces to avoid dangerous situations. exxagerated-overgeneralization

selective sensitization

increase in ones reactivity to a potentially fearfull stimulus following exposure to an unrelated stress event

prepardness

innate disposition to learn certain typed of behaviors more easily than other. (humans may have innate tendency to fear certain events - animals)

observational learning

phobias acquired when observing fearful reactions in others

incubation

strengthenig of a Conditioned fear response as a result of brief exposures to an aversive CS. Covert exposures to the feared stimulus, (worrying about it) can also lead to incubation

exposure therapies

encourages to approach fear as closely as possible, remain there until anxiety fades and then get closer. Gradel (systematic desensitization). Participant modeling.

placebo effect

Appearance of drug (NS) paired with active ingredients of the drug (US) With help of classical conditioning, placebos could be used to reduce frequency with which a patient has to take the real drug.

participant modeling

client can be accompanied by therapist who acts as a model to demonstrate how to interact with object

Flooding and exposure therapy similarity

client encouraged to endure a fairly intense level of anxiety.

tempermant

individuals level of emotional reactivity. to a large extent genetically determined. affects how easily CR can be aquired

US revaluation

occur thru observational learning (psychological debriefing after trauma, they are more likely to develop PTSD because debriefing may give victims the impression that there team was more severe than they would otherwise thought)

imaginal flooding

the greater the level of fear induced by the visualized scenario the better. depends on persons visualization ability. less aversive than invivo flooding. can be used with all types of fears