lecture 4 behaviourist approach

Question 1

What are the principles of behaviourism

Answer 1

Developed as a reaction to deficiencies of psychoanalysis

- All behaviour is learnt and is a reaction to something and can therefore be unlearnt
- The therapists are more direct in comparison to psychoanalysis 
- Not to gain insight (unlike psychoanalysis) but to bring change

Question 2

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 2

Used a device to measure how much saliva the dogs produced

Associations: many physiological and emotional responses can be conditioned for example fear, anxiety or drug stimulation. Drug-conditioned stimuli can become attention-grabbing and produce a variety of physiological and psychological approaches

Question 3

Behaviourist approach on fetishes

Answer 3

(a sexual interest in non-living objects)
Freud- fetish is a symbolic substitute for mother’s missing penis
Behaviourists claim fetishes occur through conditioning, sexual deviations are the result of an accidental pairing of an abnormal stimulus with sexual arousal or ejaculation

Question 4

Behaviourist approach on phobias

Answer 4

Freud (little Hans): Fear of horse due to castration anxiety
Behaviourists (Little albert) Fear of rats induced through association of loud noises with white rat (Watson & Rayner 1920) The fear is generalised to other furry animals/ cotton balls and Santa clause. Banging iron material when animal was touched. He was successfully conditioned and discharged with a phobia.

Question 5

Exposure therapy

Answer 5

• Patient is confronted with the fear-producing stimuli
  
  • One technique is Flooding: full strength confrontation with stimulus as we cannot feel anxiety/ fear forever.
  • Habituation is another technique: gradually desensitizing the person and learning to relax in the presence of it.
  • Mary Cover Jones eliminated a 3 year old boys fear of rabbits by pairing it with his favourite food and bringing them closer.

Question 6

Steps of exposure therapy

Answer 6

1) Relaxation
2) Hierarchy of fears: patient and therapist collaborate in constructing an anxiety hierarchy of imagined scenes
3) Imaginations: the patient repeatedly imagines the scenes in the hierarchy under conditions of deep relaxation
4) Counter conditioning: these extinguish the fear and establish a relaxation response to previously feared stimulus
VR has also been successfully used to cure phobias such as agoraphobia and fear of heights

Question 7

Aversion therapy

Answer 7

Use of punishment to modify undesirable behaviour.
Disulfiram, a medication to induce nausea and vomiting upon ingestion of alcohol. Placing unpleasant-tasting substances on the fingernails to discourage nail-chewing.
Self-punishment with elastic band when temptation arises
Interest in the approach in humans has declined as other treatment is available

Question 8

Conversion therapy

Answer 8

• Popular during the 60’s where DSM-1 and DSM-11 considered homosexuality a mental illness
  
  • Given electric shock when shown picture of men
    These are all classical conditioning- stimulus paired with behaviour then replaced with either pleasant or unpleasant

Question 9

Operant conditioning

Answer 9

• Participant is expected to behave a certain way

B.F Skinner experimented on mice in a box. Rewarding good behaviour. If green light and mouse pulled lever, it was given food and if it pulled the lever when being shocked it would stop.
If It mistakenly pulls the lever it would be shocked or removing food.

Skinner’s Baby box. Using his daughter who was 11 months old. In a box with a glass, holes to interact with child, pictures and toys, adults able to interact with child. And mattress at the bottom of the box. Lack of clothing, duvet helped as decreased proneness to sudden death syndrome due to many objects which can restrict breathing.

Question 10

Learned helplessness

Answer 10

Seligman et al: dogs in a box, when a noise came from the speaker, dog was shocked, but dog could escape by jumping to other side. He then changed it so dog could not escape despite trying. The dog then gave up without trying and even when the box was opened up again so it could escape, it chose not to.

Question 11

Two factor fear of phobia

Answer 11

Mover 1947: phobia is maintained through avoidance known as conditioned avoidance
(classical conditioning- conditioned fear, operant conditioning- avoid fear)

Question 12

Systematic reinforcement

Answer 12

Identification and removal of reinforcers of maladaptive behaviour (drinking environments may reinforce smoking for example)
Token economies: developed for use with chronic psychiatric inpatients, desired behaviours are rewarded with tokens that can be used to purchase rewards.
Behavioural activation: brief, structured form of therapy for depression. Patient is encouraged to engage in positively reinforcing activities.

Question 13

Observational learning

Answer 13

Albert Bandura- responses can be acquired without direct experience of unconditioned stimulus or reinforcers.
Bobo doll study: children who saw an adult rewarded for aggression showed more imitative aggression in subsequent free ply

- Modelling of fearlessness is an effective means of treating snake phobia
- Therapeutic application: client learns new skills by imitating other person Useful for work with younger clients such as modelling reactions to bullying

Question 14

Pro’s of behavioural therapy

Answer 14

Fast results
Clear methods
Taxonomy (useful with well-defined problems/ not vaguely defined)
Anxiety treatment (central to treatment of anxiety disorders