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Extinction and Habituation

Description of the Strategy

Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov in the early 1900s demonstrated the ease with which a response could be classically conditioned, a phenomenon that would ultimately form the basis of behavior therapy. Pavlov repeatedly presented a bell to dogs just prior to the appearance of meat powder. The meat powder was an unconditioned stimulus because it naturally made the dogs salivate without any earlier learning. After repeatedly hearing the bell before receiving the meat powder, the dogs learned to salivate in response to the bell, prior to getting the meat. This indicated that the bell had become a conditioned stimulus to elicit salivation, and mouth watering was now a conditioned response to the bell.

Based on this discovery of the way animals readily learn associations between stimuli, John B. Watson used the classical conditioning model to establish a fear response, like a phobia, in a young boy called “Little Albert.” Albert was only 11 months old when Watson conditioned the boy to fear small white rats. For this infant, the rat initially evoked no fear. However, pairing the rat with an unexpected loud noise elicited a clear fear response. Soon, Albert showed fear to all manner of stimuli that resembled white fur, including a Santa Claus mask. Spreading of the conditioned response to related stimuli (stimulus generalization) helps explain why an individual with a dog phobia is likely to become afraid of all dogs, and not simply the dog that may have initially bitten him or her.

Classical Extinction

Once a conditioned response has been established by means of repeated pairings of a conditioned stimulus with one that is unconditioned, it is difficult to change the response unless you weaken the association between the stimuli. This process of unlearning is called classical extinction. If the conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually the conditioned response starts to disappear. In other words, if the bell were repeatedly presented without meat powder, the dogs would gradually stop salivating in response to the bell. In this way, conditioned fear responses or other maladaptive behaviors can be extinguished. Classical extinction does not actually make the conditioned response disappear; rather, it becomes inhibited or suppressed. This is evident from the ease with which the conditioned response can be reinstated or show “spontaneous recovery” over time, indicating that the original learning has not been permanently lost.

Therapies based on classical conditioning are focused on helping the client unlearn the association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus, so that the unhealthy response can be extinguished. This unlearning can happen in a number of ways.

Counterconditioning

In counterconditioning, the conditioned stimulus is paired with a response that is incompatible with the unhealthy reaction, such as pairing a fear-evoking stimulus with a relaxed feeling. This approach underlies Joseph Wolpe's theory of reciprocal inhibition, which involves countering anxiety with a feeling that inhibits the fear response, such as relaxation, sexual arousal, or assertiveness. A healthy behavior eventually replaces the undesirable response. The pairing of the relaxation response with progressively more fear-evoking objects, situations, or images is known as systematic desensitization. For instance, an individual who fears heights could be taken to a moderate height and then encouraged to stay at this height while doing relaxation exercises until the fear response diminishes. When the client could remain at the height without feeling much anxiety, he or she would then be ready to move to a more challenging height. Over time, the unhealthy fear response is extinguished through repeated pairing with relaxation, a feeling that is incompatible with fear.

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