Classical Conditioning Research Paper

Use classical conditioning principles to explain the development of phobias, and describe how systematic desensitisation can be used to overcome fears and phobias. Illustrate with an example/s

Classical conditioning is a wonderful form of therapy which involves studying the condition that predicts that a spesific event will occur. Humans acquire a lot of their behavior through classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves different learning principles, which include: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalisation and discrimination(Sarma, 2010). It has being proved by tests, that classical conditioning will only occur when the conditional stimulus is a reliable predictor of the unconditional stimulus.
Different stimuli can cause emotional responses, such as feelings of fear or anger. Most of theses stimuli, such as a face, a place or a song, previously had no important significance. But through classical conditioning these stimuli were paired with other stimuli that caused powerfull emotional reactions, so the stimuli which origionally caused no emotional significance now conducted the role of being emotionally very important. Berkowitz (1964) discovered that when people got horrible electrical shocks while being around other people, as a result they then acted in a hostile manner towards that person. People are often not aware of the reason for their emotional reactions, they just sence them and finish with their is something 'nice ' or 'nasty ' about the stimulus (Samra, 2012). Phobias are unreasonable fears of spesific situations or objects, such as rats or enclosed spaces.
Classical conditioning can develope phobias, for example, if a parent has a fear of snakes the child can develop that fear just by observing the signs of fear that his or her parent is expressing. It is possible for classical conditioning to occur without direct experience with the conditional and unconditional stimulus(Sarma, 2010). There is no need for the child to be attacked by the snake. Therefor, human beings can acquire phobias vicariously-by hearing or even reading different types of stories that portray unpleasant episodes. The imaginary episode that is pictured as the story (unconditional stimulus) if read or heard is able to give imagionary stimuli (conidtional stimuli) that result in emotional responses (conditional reponses)(Sarma,
2010). Systematic desensitization is a behavioral theraphy used to overcome phobias and other anxiety disorders. This assignment deals with the case of Little Albert. An enfant called Albert B, that was nine mnths old, had no fear of living creatures such as rats and rabbits. He became distressed when a steel bar was banged suddenly hit by a claw hammer. Watson and Rayner tryed to condition fear in Little Albert of an object which was previously unfeared (a white rat) by connecting it with a feared stimulus ( the noise of the hammer banging the bar). During a course of two sessions the rat was paired with the noise seven times, one week apart. Albert become very scared when the rat was shown to him on it 's own and avoided it (Sarma, 2010). ' 'He ...fell over on his left side, raised himself ... and began to crawl way so rapidly that he was caught with difficulty before reaching the edge of the table ' ' (Kosslyn and Rosenberg 2001 p169). Albert was shown familiar objects five days later such as wooden blocks, a rabbit, white cotton, a dog, a sealskin coat, the heads of Watson and two assistants and a Santa Clause mask. Albert responted with fear towards the rabbit, the dog and the seal skin coat. Some objects had returned to the first conditioned response but not others (Sarma, 2010). Little Albert left before systematic desensitization was conducted on this experiment. Systematic desensitization can be overcame in the situation where a young child who previously had no fear of dogs, was classically conditioned to fear them by bringing the child into a shed, where an unpleasant alarm was turned on, causing the child to become scared of the dog by pairing the dog (unfeared stimulus) with the alarm (feared stimulus) six times in two sessions, one week apart.
The child would then portray a sence of fear or unrest whenever they then saw the dog. Systematic desensitization can occur in this situation if everytime the child comes in close contact or even touches the dog, they then recieve a special treat such as a lolly pop or chocolate to reward them for being in contact with the dog. As a result the child would then learn to associate the dog with recieving special treats, therefore the child would want to remain in contact with the dog on a regular basis in order to get the treats, which would result in the child 's fear of the dog completely
disapearing. In conclusion, classical conditioning principles can be used in the development of phobias. Classical conditioning involves studying the different conditions that are involved in predicting that a certain event will occur. It is through the principles of classical conditioning that most peoples behaviors occur. Classical conditioning can be used to develope phobias when an unfeared stimulus is paired with a feared stimulus. When you present the person with the previously unfeared stimulus on its own, he/she will then become afraid of that stimulus because they now, associate the unfeared stimulus with the feared stimulus. Systematic desensitization can be used to remove the person 's phobia that was created by classical conditioning, by traing the person to connect the object they are afraid of with something possitive, for example, if a child has become afraid of dogs through classical conditioning, they should recieve a treat every time they touch or play with the dog.l As a result the child would learn to assosciate the treat with the dog. He/she would repeatedly want to play with the dog in order to get their treat causing the phobia to disapear.

References

Kiran, S. (Ed.). (2010). Introduction to psychologyh. Great Britain:Pearson Education Limited.

Kosslyn, S. M & Rosenberg, R.S (2001). Psychology, 160 Gould Street, Pearson Educational Company.