Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Bandura, Seligman, Ellis, Beck) Flashcards
Behavioral Theory focused on
-Observed behaviors (rather than internal personality traits)
-The importance of learning (grounded in learning theory)
-Directive and active nature of treatments
-Importance of assessment and evaluation (treatment is of an empirical nature)
(Kazdin, 1984)
the 3 C’s of behavior therapy
- counter-conditioning
- contingency management
- cognitive behavior modification
Theory of psychopathology from behavioral theory
- Anxiety is the root of most behavior disorders
- Anxiety is primarily a pattern of responses of the sympathetic nervous system when an individual is exposed to a threatening stimulus.
- Anxiety is learned when a neutral stimulus can be paired contiguously with a threatening stimulus classical conditioning
- Through the process of generalization stimuli physically similar to the original conditioned stimulus such as other dogs (who are considerably less cute and less manly than Todd), can also evoke anxiety
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
- clients have been conditioned to fear stimuli that are omnipresent
- conditioned anxiety frequently leads to avoidance (automatically terminates the anxiety)
symptom substitution
“theoretical myth” of those who see all behavior as interconnected by a single underlying dynamic conflict
2 factor model (Mowrer, 1960)
2 stages of fear and avoidance, combined classical and operant conditioning -person is first classically conditioned to avoid a stimulus and then secondarily experiences operant conditioning further exacerbating the fear -explains the development of OCD, OCD develops as anxiety that produces distress, whereby anxiety is then reduced by an opperantly conditioned avoidant response Stage 1: neural stimulation acquires anxiety evoking properties by being paired with UCS Stage 2: aversive properties of stimulus cause avoidance responses to be developed, which are ritualistic behaviors (compulsions) that serve to reduce anxiety Stage 1 represents classical conditioning and can be used to understand etiology of anxiety from a behavioral perspective Classical Conditioning (Pavlov, 1905, 1927)
Skinner’s (1938) ABC Model (operant conditioning)
A- Antecedent
B- Behavior
C- Consequence
Skinner’s (1938) Theory of psychopathology
- Maladaptive Behaviors are likely to increase if they are reinforced
- Maladaptive Behaviors are likely to decrease if they are followed by punishments or unrewarded
- Environmental stimuli can serve as cues
- Discriminative Stimuli - certain stimuli serve as cues that reinforcement is likely to follow a response when that response is emitted in that particular situation (but not in others)
Skinner’s (1938) functional analysis
- The process of specifying the stimulus situation that set the occasion for the maladaptive behavior (antecedents)
- Operationalizing the behavior itself
- And detailing the reinforcement contingencies that follow (consequences)
Skinner’s (1938) behavioral problems often falling into 3 categories
- Behavioral excess (e.g., excessive hand-washing)
- Deficits (often a lack of learning)
- Inappropriateness (e.g., public masturbation)
Skinner’s (1938) consequences are dependent on the individual:
consequence is only reinforcing if it increases the probability the response will be repeated
Skinner’s (1938) depression
-From an older behavioral perspective, withdrawal deprives a person of the ability to obtain positive reinforcement via operant conditioning and so the person does not feel motivated to perform any further behaviors.
Barlow’s (2007) depression
Behavioral withdrawal is common in depressed individuals and it reinforces their depression because they are unable to experience feedback from the environment which could potentially challenge their depressive beliefs and attributions
Lewinson’s (1974) depression
- Due to inadequate/low rate of response –contingent positive reinforcement (due to decreased potential reinforcers in the environment)
- Depressed person doesn’t interact with the environment, so adequate reinforcement is lost
Abraham, Seligman, and Teasdale’s (1978) depression
-Causal attributional style/reformulated learned helplessness
-Vulnerability to depression comes from a habitual style of explaining the causes of life events
-Depressogenic attribution style: previous events are seen as uncontrollable and the person expects the same from future events
3 dimensions of attributional style:
internal v. external
global v. specific
stable v. unstable
-depressed persons attributional style is internal global, stable
-It’s my fault, everything is my fault, there is no hope for change
-hopelessness, there is nothing I can do to change the outcome of the situation
