Phobias and Addiction
Phobias and Addiction
Rachael Thomas
PSY/300
January 26, 2014
Professor Chung
Phobias and Addiction
Webster Dictionary defines phobia as “a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it” ("PHOBIA," n.d) Whereas Addiction is defined as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or something that is psychologically or physical habit-forming, as narcotics, to such extent its cessation causes severe trauma” ("addiciton," n.d). So can a phobia be classical condition or an addiction be operant conditioned into existence? Some scientists believe that it can, but then the question is what is operant and classical conditioning? Also what is extinction mean and how is it achieved in both conditions? These are the topics I will be answer and I will also be giving examples to each phobia and addiction that can happen through classical and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
“Classical conditioning is when an environmental stimulus leads to a learned response through pairing of an unconditioned stimulus” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). For example Ivan Pavlov experiment with dogs. He did a study based on dogs and conditioning them to salivate by hearing a bell or a fork being pinged. Basically he would give dogs food after the bell rang. So after a couple tries he would then noticed that the dogs would salivate even without food present if they heard the bell.
Another example of classical conditioning was John Watson and Rosalie Rayner experiment in 1920. Their experiment consisted of a little Albert who was a baby and a well lite photo darkroom. Though the experiment was unethical Watson and his colleague wanted to test to see if they could get a well-adjusted, happy baby to fear something through conditioning them. So Watson had a white rat, a rabbit, a fur coat, a dog, and a Santa mask. After about two weeks of letting little Albert play with the animals, he took the white rat and
Rachael Thomas
PSY/300
January 26, 2014
Professor Chung
Phobias and Addiction
Webster Dictionary defines phobia as “a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it” ("PHOBIA," n.d) Whereas Addiction is defined as “the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or something that is psychologically or physical habit-forming, as narcotics, to such extent its cessation causes severe trauma” ("addiciton," n.d). So can a phobia be classical condition or an addiction be operant conditioned into existence? Some scientists believe that it can, but then the question is what is operant and classical conditioning? Also what is extinction mean and how is it achieved in both conditions? These are the topics I will be answer and I will also be giving examples to each phobia and addiction that can happen through classical and operant conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
“Classical conditioning is when an environmental stimulus leads to a learned response through pairing of an unconditioned stimulus” (Kowalski & Westen, 2009). For example Ivan Pavlov experiment with dogs. He did a study based on dogs and conditioning them to salivate by hearing a bell or a fork being pinged. Basically he would give dogs food after the bell rang. So after a couple tries he would then noticed that the dogs would salivate even without food present if they heard the bell.
Another example of classical conditioning was John Watson and Rosalie Rayner experiment in 1920. Their experiment consisted of a little Albert who was a baby and a well lite photo darkroom. Though the experiment was unethical Watson and his colleague wanted to test to see if they could get a well-adjusted, happy baby to fear something through conditioning them. So Watson had a white rat, a rabbit, a fur coat, a dog, and a Santa mask. After about two weeks of letting little Albert play with the animals, he took the white rat and