5:1 The first wave - behavioral psychotherapy

Question 1

Name three psychologists whose work provided the essential foundation for a new behavioral approach to therapy.

Answer 1

Pavlov
Skinner
Watson

Question 2

Skinner most directly influenced the US tradition. Which methods did he use and what was his approach known as?

Answer 2

Operant conditioning methods (rather than conditioning - UK).

Reinforcement (rather than extinction - UK).

Known as behavior modification.

Question 3

Where were operant conditioning methods most widely applied?

Answer 3

In psychiatric institutions.

In institutions for people with severe learning disabilities or with dementia.

Places where behavioral problems were common.

Question 4

What types of reinforcers did operant conditioning psychologists apply?

Answer 4

Positive and negative reinforcers to humanely increase the frequency of a positive or desired behavior and to reduce the negative behaviors.

Question 5

Describe the three-term model used in operant approaches.

Answer 5

The discriminative stimulus –> the behavior –> the reinforcer.

Question 6

How was the three-term model defined in behavior modification?

Answer 6

The Antecedent stimulus –> The Behavior –>
The Consequence or outcome.
(ie. ABC model)

The outcome = the reinforcing event that maintained the behavior.

Question 7

It was often difficult to identify provoking stimulus and the specific consequences, so operant methods struggled to find the best ways to produce behavior changes.

What technique was developed in response to that?

Answer 7

Applied behavioral analysis.

Today is also called functional analysis or functional assessment.

Termed “functional” because of the assumption that the behavior has a specific function or purpose.

Question 8

What are two broad categories of functional behavior?

Answer 8

1. To obtain or access something positive.

2. To avoid or escape something negative.

Question 9

If behavior is a result of loud noise or a distressing stimulus and the behavior is reduced by removing the person from that situation, which approach from the ABC model is used?

Answer 9

The antecedent approach (A).

Removing the high level of noise or distress (the antecedent) leads to a reduction in behavior.

Question 10

An individual uses behavior to achieve a goal because they lack alternative ways to achieve it. They are provided a new skill that improves their ability to communicate their needs. This skills-based approach is which approach from the ABC model?

Answer 10

Behavior-based approach (B).

Question 11

Someone is screaming to get attention, but no attention is given and the screaming eventually stops. Which approach is this from the ABC model?

Answer 11

Consequence-based approach (C).

Hard to apply. Once the consequence is not enforced, all the hard work is undone.

Recall the partial reinforcement schedule: if the person gets reinforced every 10th time they behave in a certain way.

Must be a continuous reinforcement schedule to be effective.

Question 12

The TREA approach, or Treatment Routes for Exploring Agitation, provides staff with possible causes of agitation and suggests interventions to reduce the behavior by introducing new positive consequences or taking away negative ones. What is the main aim of this approach?

Answer 12

To put the person at the center of the approach.

It is less about managing the problem behavior and more about addressing the individual’s basic needs.

Question 13

Premack’s Principle states that frequent chosen behavior can be used as…

Answer 13

…a reinforcer to alter another behavior.

A behavior, chosen frequently, is itself reinforcing.

Eg: A high frequency preferred behavior (watching tv) can be used to increase frequency of a less preferred behavior (eating cabbage).

Eg. Letting people with schizophrenia only sit when working, otherwise they had to stand.

Question 14

When are Premack’s Principles typically used in current days?

Answer 14

When obvious reinforcers are hard to find.

Question 15

What principle of reinforcement involves using token economy methods?

Answer 15

The principle of secondary reinforcement.

Question 16

Name four primary influencers of the British tradition of behavior therapy

Answer 16

1. Cover-Jones - behavioral psychotherapy was a direct descendant of her work
2. Watson
3. Pavlov
4. Hull

Question 17

What methods did British behavior therapists use?

Answer 17

Classical conditioning (rather than operant - US)
De-conditioning
Extinction (rather than reinforcement - US)
Stimulus-stimulus

Question 18

US behaviorists’ target for treatment was changing behavior. That tradition is known as:

Answer 18

Behavior modification.

Question 19

British behaviorists targeted emotions - addressing emotional distress, fear, anxiety, worry. That tradition was known as:

Answer 19

Behavior therapy.

Question 20

True or false: Experiments in classical conditioning in animals show that the conditioned response usually persists forever.

Answer 20

False. It tends to extinguish when a conditioned stimulus ceases to be paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 21

Mary Cover-Jones worked with little Peter, who feared fluffy white rabbits even though he had no history of interacting with them. Give a few terms for describing Peter’s fear.

Answer 21

Conditioned stimulae.
Transferred fear.
Generalized conditioned response.
Behavioral genetics.

Question 22

Cover-Jones used a “degree of toleration” approach for presenting the rabbit to Peter in a systematically ordered stage of change. What would that approach be called today?

Answer 22

Exposure.
or
Stimulus hierarchy – Wolpe.

Question 23

Having Peter watch other children play with the rabbit without fear is an approach called:

Answer 23

Modelling, which is a form of observational or social learning.

Question 24

What three principles did Cover-Jones establish, which continued to be used in behavioral psychotherapy?

Answer 24

1. Application of theory and empirical evidence to the treatment of a problem.
2. Experimental / scientific approach.
3. Methodological innovations - graded exposure, degree of tolerance, physical measures.

Question 25

South African psychologist Joseph Wolpe developed experimental models of neuroses by conditioning fear in animals and then finding ways to reduce it. This work was based on the concept of:

Answer 25

Reciprocal inhibition:

It’s impossible to be both anxious and relaxed at the same time while at the same time carrying out behavior that indicated the opposite.

Question 26

Wolpe used stimulus hierarchies to systematically expose a patient to a situation. The patient was not allowed to engage in any behaviors to reduce that fear. Inhibition of such behaviors was called:

Answer 26

Response prevention.

The idea was that the patient experienced the anxiety and learned that it would reduce on its own.

Patients used the “Subjective Units of Distress or Discomfort Scale.”

Question 27

What did Wolpe term his overall approach of counter-conditioning / reciprocal inhibition?

Answer 27

Systematic Desensitization.

Question 28

What are other terms for imaginal desensitization?

Answer 28

Imagine exposure.

In vitro exposure.

Question 29

Mary Cover-Jones introduced deconditioning by observation. This later formed the foundation of what theory by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura?

Answer 29

Social learning theory.

We learn important behavior from watching other people and observing the consequences of their actions.

Later influenced social cognition and the mirror neuron system.

Question 30

Bandura’s experiment on the bobo doll (children copying adults’ actions on doll) was about the transmission of violence. What did that experiment demonstrate?

Answer 30

Copy modeling.

Children who observed qualities in their parents were likely to develop those qualities themselves.

Intragenerational transmission of fear, violence, etc.

Question 31

When a person sees another person’s actions or behaviors but does not copy them, that situation is called:

Answer 31

Mastery modelling.

Eg. Seeing someone doing something scary and then doing that thing despite being afraid. Helps overcome fears.

Question 32

When does a fear become a phobia?

Answer 32

When the fear has a more significant impact on the person and their life, such as avoiding the dentist and suffering poor dental health.

Question 33

What type of behaviorist approach have dentists been trained in to deliver the interventions to remove obstacles to treatment?

Answer 33

Systematic desensitization.

Eg. Through computer program following a standardized stimulus hierarchy.

Question 34

A common finding in many psychological treatments is that the rate of change of different outcome indicators can vary. What is this called?

Answer 34

Response desynchrony.

Question 35

Describe active avoidance.

Answer 35

Distancing from a situation (antecedent) when encountered.

Question 36

Describe passive avoidance.

Answer 36

Avoiding the situation in the first place.

Question 37

Describe adaptive avoidance.

Answer 37

Avoiding a likely event.

Question 38

Describe maladaptive avoidance.

Answer 38

Avoiding an unlikely event.

Causes a person to adjust their actions and limit their opportunities.
Plays a central role in anxiety disorders (also in depression and other disorders).

Question 39

Two types of avoidance behavior are:

Answer 39

1. Escape - distance ourselves from an unpleasant or aversive ongoing event.

ABC: Antecedent - escape - survival.

2. Avoid - response to a situation associated with danger. Omission of a future aversive event.

ABC: Antecedent - avoidance - survival.

Question 40

In stimulus-stimulus association learning, when a scary snake is in the grass: The aversive snake is an unconditioned stimulus. The unconditioned response is avoidance.
What does the grass become and what is the response?

Answer 40

The grass becomes an aversive condition stimulus or CS negative.
It leads to the conditioned response.

Stimulus-stimulus behavioral theory of avoidance learning.

Question 41

A dog naturally lifts its leg if given a mild shock to its foot. The shock is the aversive unconditioned stimulus. The leg lift becomes a unconditioned response. If a bell is paired with the shock, the bell becomes:

Answer 41

An aversive, conditioned stimulus and the leg lift becomes a conditioned response.

Stimulus-stimulus behavioral theory of avoidance learning.

Question 42

In the avoidance learning example of the shock to the dog’s foot:
The antecedent is the bell.
The response is the foot lift.
What is the reinforcer?

Answer 42

In avoidance learning, the potential reinforcer is the omission of a pending aversive event.
The ability to predict the future did not fit into the early behavioral models.
A new variable was proposed: the potential reinforcer of fear.

Question 43

What are the two parts of fear that make up the two-process theory of avoidance learning?
Who is this theory attributed to?

Answer 43

1. Internal fear.
2. Observable fear.

American psychologist Orval Mowrer.

Question 44

How was the emotional state (for example, fear) able to be included in a behaviorist framework?

Answer 44

The emotional state had to be assumed to be a covert behavior and a component of the total behavioral response, both observable and unobservable.

Question 45

The first stage of the two-learning process theory of avoidance involves Pavlovian stimulus-stimulus association. Explain this stage.

Answer 45

Involves the pairing of neutral and aversive stimuli with an aversive outcome. Classical conditioning.

• Previously neutral stimulus acquire aversive properties.
• Emotional and physical responses can be conditioned.

Question 46

In the second stage of the two-learning process theory of avoidance, operant processes take over to reinforce the behavior. Explain this stage.

Answer 46

The reinforcer is reduction of fear itself, not the non-delivery of the aversive outcome.
* An increase in avoidance behavior to the antecedent, the conditioned fear stimulus, is negatively reinforced by the reduction of fear.

Question 47

What two stages comprised Orval Mowrer’s two-process theory of avoidance learning?

Answer 47

1. Classically conditioned fear response (Pavlovian stimulus-stimulus).
2. Operant processes take over to reinforce the behavior. (Fear as an intervening variable between stimulus and antecedent).

Question 48

True or false: Once established, fear is necessary for avoidance behavior to continue.

Answer 48

False. Avoidance responses can become habitual and no longer contingent on reinforcement for their maintenance.

Question 49

True or false: Desensitizing fear by exposure will only be effective if terminating the aversive stimulus occurs when fear or distress has reduced to near zero.

Answer 49

False. Exposure is equally effective, regardless of whether it was terminated when distress levels were high or low.

Question 50

True or false: Animals can learn to avoid a negative outcome even without an aversive stimulus.

Answer 50

True.
Eg. When rats are given a shock at a fixed time interval, they learn to avoid the shock by moving to a different part of the cage.
Observational or instructional learning (social learning) also teaches avoidance.
The absence of the conditioned stimulus makes the explanation of a first-stage Pavlovian process problematic.

Question 51

What is the focus of cognitive explanations of avoidance behavior?

Answer 51

Information about the aversive stimulus or outcome (rather than the events themselves).

Question 52

What did two American psychologists Robert Rescorla and Allan Wagnar find about CS –> US?

Answer 52

CS–>US (less learning)
When a conditioned stimulus was followed by an aversive unconditioned stimulus, there was actually less learning.

CS–>?US (more learning)
Uncertainty or prediction error is necessary for learning.
An element of surprise helps us learn to avoid danger.

Question 53

Rat experiment: In one box, the rat saw a light before the shock but then it couldn’t escape the shock. In the other box, the rat was shocked equally often but without warning. The rat chose to stay in the box with the light. What does this teach us about uncertainty?

Answer 53

Uncertainty is aversive and humans and animals behave to reduce uncertainty.

Waiting and not knowing is worse than the eventual outcome.

Explains hypervigilance; safety behavior; maladaptive avoidance.

Question 54

Superstitious behaviors can be considered:

Answer 54

Safety behaviors.
Eg. Lucky charms.
We learn that we are safe because of the safety behaviors; not because there’s nothing to be afraid of.
The mechanism may maintain phobias.

Question 55

Give an example of when safety behaviors can become problematic.

Answer 55

Obsessive compulsive disorders.

Question 56

In the US, operant methods developed with an emphasis on:

Answer 56

The three-stage contingency model and reinforcement, using methods of functional analysis and contingency management to manage challenging behavior.

Question 57

In the UK, Pavlovian principles led to techniques of:

Answer 57

Exposure hierarchies and systematic desensitization.