I tend to avoid things I do not like or enjoy. I know that is not a novel or new tendency for people but after reading about Avoidance Learning I have a new understanding of why people do things that they do. The things I avoid, like having lab work drawn because I HATE needles, are things that others do not even give a second thought. The most ironic thing is I do not have a fear or global avoidance of needles, I have no problem what so ever sticking them into other people, I simply just get very anxious and uncomfortable, not to mention pass out, when they are aimed at me. Why is that? Why, does one person avoid something that another person does not even think about? The answer, OK part of the answer, is Avoidance Learning.
The text defines avoidance learning as the process of learning to stay away from aversive stimulus. (Ormrod, 2012 pg. 71) Well no kidding, people tend to avoid things that cause them pain, anxiety, or frustration. I learned when I was very young to not stick a key into an electrical outlet. That memory is still very vivid and I can almost feel the shock and see the spark when I think about it. However, avoidance learning is more than just avoiding pain or anxiety; avoidance learning requires a couple of parts. First, in order to “learn” avoidance you need to have bad experience, ie aversive stimuli. (Ormrod, 2012) Then a connection needs to be made, whether it be conscious or not, real or not, logical or not, some connection between what happened to you and the cause or at least the warning signs that the “bad” thing is going to happen again. (Ormrod, 2012) This warning sign or feeling that if you do whatever action something bad will happen to you is labeled as a pre-aversive stimulus. (Ormrod, 2012) For ...
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...ighly critical of one another and will call you out quicker than you can say OK. Most of the times these interactions between staff members or what I like to call “friendly debates” are conducted with the vigor usually seen on the animal planet when a lion is taking down their prey. After reading this section on avoidance learning, I have to wonder who is avoiding what in these scenarios. Are the ones who are calling out their coworkers attempting to avoid being seen a particular way or are they modeling the behavior they have learned as being wanted? Are the people sitting quietly watching or egging on others from the cheap seats avoiding something? While I know avoidance learning cannot explain all of the issues related to such behaviors I do find it very it to be a point of curiosity for me.
Works Cited
Ormrod, J. (2012). Human learning. (6th ed.). Pearson.
Kurayama, Matsuzawa, Komiya, Nakazawa, Yoshida, Shimizu, (2012) confirmed that these neutral stimuluses deed indeed has an effect and played a role in fear conditioning in people. The case showed that Treena had indeed learned to be scared of the incident and it proceeded to become a cue for to get anxious and get panic attacks. It has been claimed that patients with panic disorder exhibited fear potentiated startle responses to safety cues and therefore reduced discrimination between safety and danger signals during acquisition, indicating that the safety signal was processed as the aversive event in contrast to the danger signal (Nees, Heinrich, Flor, 2015). It also showed that the her failing to answer the question had affected her in other classes when she would not participate in other classes hence, this showed that the neutral stimulus has developed and grew into a conditioned stimulus which evoked feelings of fear and anxiety in her, in other words it had become a cue for her to be scared and
As with all other phobias, agoraphobia is often acquired through classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus (Weiten, 1998). Describing and explaining exactly how agoraphobia is acquired can be achieved by identifying the antecedents of the phobia. Antecedents are the events that precede a particular response. In the case of agoraphobia, this response is a panic attack. Agoraphobia is essentially anxiety of three kinds, phobic anxiety, panic anxiety (the panic attacks), and phobic a...
conditioned fear that does not involve oedipal complexes or displacement. The theory of classical conditioning says that phobias are the result of learned associations of neutral stimuli and frightening events. This also demonstrates why an individual might have a phobia of guns after being shot by one.
In observational learning, a child takes note of what his or her mother or father considers to be threatening. On the other hand, children can also be conditioned by their own life experiences through a process called operant conditioning (SOURCE). In some instances, children tend to generalize their fears, subsequently forming a phobia. For example, a young girl who became increasingly cautious of flying insects after an unpleasant encounter with a nest of agitated yellow jackets. After being assaulted by these creatures, she associated all flying bugs with the painful sting of a yellow jacket. Of course, children can also be classically conditioned to display a fearful response; that is, they learn to associate an unconditioned fear-relevant stimulus with a conditioned stimulus, provoking a conditioned, fearful response. One of the most well-known examples of this is an experiment involving a young boy, famously dubbed Little Albert. Little Albert learned to fear small furry animals in a laboratory setting when the presence of these creatures was paired with loud banging noises (SOURCE). From the aforementioned experiments and studies, it is undeniable that external circumstances and experiences assist in the configuration of fear in
Fear conditioning is a commonly used behavioral paradigm to test an organism’s ability to create associations and learn to avoid aversive stimuli. There are two methodologies: cue and contextual fear conditioning (Kim & Jung, 2006). In cued fear conditioning, a neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) which activates a strong unconditioned fear responses (UR). After a continued training period, the neutral CS is now able to activate a conditioned response (CR). Similarly, context conditioning occurs when the background or context cues, during the condition training, is able to predict the US and activate the fear response. For example, a mice can be placed in a novel environment and given an aversive stimulus (e.g. footshock). When the mice is returned to that same environment, it will display a CR (e.g. freezing). The mice’s ability for contextual fear conditioning is dependent on whether it was able to learn and associate its environment with the aversive stimulus. (Curzon, Rustay, and Browman, 2009)
How would it feel to lay on a bed of straw? That’s the question I ask myself as I wonder how much straw to throw under each cow. My family’s barn is a station barn. This means our cattle stay in the barn at night, but go out to pasture during the day. The cows sleep in a manger that’s parallel to the center isle in the barn. A manger is a personal stall for each cow. Once the cows come into the barn they go to their assigned manger. The cows don’t need to be told where to go. They know theirs spots and walk in and wait to be tied and milked. Once all the cows are in their mangers each one gets tied with a chain and collar until milking is complete. So, as you can see bedding is important. To bed the cow’s, we
This has been going on from the start of humanity. Fear comes from within the conscious and that is inevitable; there are many things that are frightening to us humans. A lot of these fears are learned through experiences growing up. I’ve always wondered what happened to someone to have such a strong irrational fear. The number of phobias are highly increasing, 2017 has been recorded as the highest amount of phobias diagnosis(Phobias 1). We teach ourselves these things without even realizing it, until we have already encrypted the phobia into our minds. There are many studies today trying to understand the development of these phobias. Having phobias can have a massive interruption of daily routines, limit productiveness, create low self-esteem, and place a strain on relationships with families or friends because people will avoid the
Fear is a vital response for survival, in the face of threats and is also an important component of behavioural defence systems in mammals. Ivan Pavlov (1920’s) introduced the concept of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning can be used to learn various emotions including fear; this is known as a conditioned emotional response (Carlson, 2010, p.g 369). In this essay, Pavlovian (cued) fear conditioning and contextual fear conditioning will be discussed, and then the neural mechanisms underlying fear conditioning will be evaluated using various studies carried out on animals and humans.
Avoidance is the act of avoiding or keeping away from something or someone. Avoidance include staying away from thoughts, conversations, activities, places or people that in PTSD could remind the victim of the trauma undergone.
...6. Generalization from the original phobic stimulus to stimuli of a similar nature will occur; 7. Noxious experiences which occur under conditions of excessive confinement are more likely to produce phobic reactions; 8. Neutral stimuli which are associated with a noxious experience, may develop motivating properties. This acquired drive is termed the fear drive; 9. Responses (such as avoidance) which reduce the fear drive are reinforced; 10. Phobic reactions can be acquired vicariously (Rachman 31). These theories are used to identify how people obtain phobias and other situations that may occur with phobias.
One of the characteristics of a phobia is a feeling that is greater than the fear of a situation or object with an exaggeration of the danger associated with the said situation or even object. This persistent fear often leads to an anxiety disorder that leads an individual to develop mechanisms that ensure one avoids the object or situation that triggers the occurrence of the phobia. Phobias can have highly debilitating effects on an individual including the development of depression, isolation, substance abuse, and even suicide. Many people take phobia for granted however, it is clear that it has the potential to impair the quality of life for both the affected and the people around them. The fact that many of the phobias are manageable using
Learning is defined as a “process of change that occurs as a result of an individual’s experience” (Mazure, 2006). Researchers assume that the process of learning follows certain general principles, which were developed, into the general process learning theories. These include operant conditioning and classical conditioning which has been put forward by leading psychologists like Pavlov, B.F.Skinner and Thorndike. However, in learning, operant and classical conditoning are opposed by biological constraints that state that there are limitations to the theories. Some of these biological constraints on learning will be discussed below.
Denial is perhaps the most primitive and maladaptive of the defense mechanisms. We engage in the forbidden behavior, but feel no anxiety because memories of that behavior are prevented from entering consciousness. We cannot recall having done anything unacceptable, so we quite honestly deny our behavior.
Some individuals are stuck especially on this method and it is ok for other employees to engage them in other methods as well. Co workers can assist in the transition from avoidance style to other conflict methods by first reassuring that emotions are stabilized so accurate facts, feelings and detailed goals regarding the conflict can be understood as effectively as possible. Energy infuse nice by strong emotion is the needed factor to implement and action plan. By acting out different roles or writing out a plan can ease the transition from avoidance to mother affective conflict solving methods. The individual being of assistance may need to come of as assertive to take control and have promptness in the transition. By also developing and proving pros and cons of other method besides avoiding can help with an easy transition.(Eilerman 2015) Some people have only used avoidance and never directly approached a conflict so they are either scared or ignorant when it comes to affective communicating
“Aversion therapy uses the behavioral approach principles that new behavior can be 'learnt ' in order to overcome addictions, obsessions or, violent behavior (Behavioral Psychology 2015).” In simple terms, the basis of Aversion Therapy is to be able to get rid of a habit or behavior that one wishes to no longer have. This is done by learning how to associate pain, discomfort, or suffering with said behavior or habit one would like to get rid of. Some very common examples of habits that one would seek to get rid of are smoking, violence, alcoholism, gambling, over eating, pornography, and many other undesirable habits one might have. (Behavioral Psychology 2015)