Escape and Avoidance Learning

escape: when behavior terminates aversive stimulus

avoidance: when behavior prevents aversive stimulus

avoidance conditioning maintains phobias

• phobias are resurgent and come back a lot

• we avoid our fears completely and that avoidance makes the fear stick bc we don’t have the chance to extinguish it

• phobias are irrational (like escalators) not rational (like guns)

• animals condition less readily than humans

• human phobias require one brief conditioning trial (doesn’t take much)

stampfl procedure: avoidance response occurs early in sequence of events. early responding greatly reduces extent to which avoidance response can be extinguished

ocd

• persistent thoughts, impulses, or images

• repetitive actions in response to obsessions

• persistent thoughts are reduced by the compulsion

• compulsion reinforces the obsession by reducing anxiety

• people w ocd believe that they should be in complete control of their thoughts and feel personally responsible for the highly improbable

• Exposure and Response Prevention

• method of treating ocd

• systematic desensitization with flooding therapy

escape and avoidance conditioning strengthen the behavior through removal of an aversive stimulus

punishment weakens the behavior through the application of an aversive stimulus or the removal of an appetitive stimulus

• positive punishment: adding something that they don’t like.

• negative punishment: removing something that they like

• response cost: removal of specific reinforcer following the occurrence of problem behavior

• time-out: loss of access to positive reinforcers for a brief period of time following problem behavior