Learning Experience Paper: Smoking Cessation

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Learning Experience Paper: Smoking Cessation Throughout one’s lifetime, an individual undergoes a magnitude of various learning experiences, all of which serve as a shaping agent, consequently forming personality traits that are unique to each human being. Examining this fact, what does learning mean, precisely? Namely, the definition of learning is the resulting change in behavior or knowledge that occurs through experience (Boundless, 2016). Moreover, (from a psychological aspect) associative learning entails linking particular stimuli or events that occur jointly within the environment (such as in classical and operant conditioning). Alternatively, cognitive-social …show more content…

Unconditioned Responses (UCR): unlearned, automatic reflexes; 2. Conditioned Responses (CR): a reaction that is learned, in contrast with a reflex. Additionally, Ivan Pavlov found that upon introducing an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - which elicits a reflex from an organism - induces an unconditioned response (UCR) - the organism’s natural reaction to the stimulus being presented. The scent of dinner cooking = (UCS)  Salivation (UCR), for example. Further elaborating, classical conditioning involves the following three stages: 1. Before: the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is presented to the organism, eliciting the unconditioned response (UCR). Next, the presentation of a neutral stimulus (NS) - a stimulus that does not initiate a natural response; 2. During: the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is repetitiously being presented directly after each presentation of the neutral stimulus (NS), thus, eliciting the original unconditioned response (UCR); 3. After: the neutral stimulus (NS) solely produces a conditioned response (CR), therefore, becoming the conditioned stimulus (CS) - a stimulus that generates a response after repetitious pairing (thus, associating) with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). (OpenStax, 2016, pp. …show more content…

Eventually, the CR decreases as a result of the UCS no longer being presented alongside the CS. According to PsychologyNotesHQ (2016), this method of behavior reversal is aversion therapy, and, often utilized for assisting with cessation of addictions. For instance, before the application of behavioral aversion, the patient associates an undesired behavior (addiction) with positive feelings. However, once the steps for avoidance initiates, the appeal of the addiction diminishes, as the patient replaces feelings of positivity with an undesirable reaction, such as vomiting. Ultimately, this is how I conditioned myself to cease addiction to cigarettes - every time I smoked a cigarette, convincing myself that each inhalation of smoke tastes like manure (instantaneously inducing severe nausea). Below, [Figure 1.3] demonstrates the aversion conditioning model: Conversely, smoking cessation is not purely limited to this type of behavioral therapy, as reversing all habitual activities involving cigarettes or smoking cues, is also employable by performing operant conditioning or cognitive-social learning, as well. Operant Conditioning Based on the research of B.F. Skinner, the operant conditioning method of learning is where the stimulus/experience transpires

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