Lecture 4- Behavioural Approaches Flashcards
What was behaviourism a reaction to?
The limitations of psychoanalysis approach and stagnation of introspective psychology
What were the limitations of the psychoanalysis approach?
Not falsifiable, data was case studies, not parsimonioius
What were the key themes of behavioural approach?
The study of observable behaviour and external events that maintain it. Learning through modifying behaviour due to experience
Why was behaviourism not accepted?
As it was not verifiable as there was no need to explore or change the psyche
What do environmental conditions do in behaviourism?
Affect the acquisition, modification and elimination of response patterns
What is radical behaviourism?
They shunned mental states and denied existence of such states
Who is a famous radical behaviourist?
Skinner
What does behavioural therapy involve?
Unlearning of undesirable behaviour and emotional responses and learning desirable cues
What does behavioural therapy say about maladaptive behaviour?
Maladaptive behaviour is from failure to learn adaptive responses and the learning of maladaptive responses
What is the assumption of behavioural therapy?
Abnormal behaviour are learned the same ways as normal behaviours and can be unlearnt
What is classical conditioning?
Process where the formerly neutral stimulus (becomes a CS) comes to elicit a biologically adaptive response by being paired with an UCS
What does the conditioned stimuli reliably predict?
The occurence of UCS can become conditiond
When can the conditioned response become reduced?
Conditioned response gradually extinguishes if the conditioned stimulus repeatedly paired without the unconditioned stimulus
What did Pavlov examine?
Investigation the way eating excited salivary, gastric and pancreatic secretion by creating fistulas in dogs
What did Pavlov notice?
Noticed psychic secretions drool produced by anything other than direct exposure to food and physiological and emotional responses can be conditioned
What is the process of classical conditioning?
UCS and NS are paired for a UCR
NS becomes the CS that elicits a response the same as the UCS
How can a fear of needles be reduced?
With the drug conditioned stimuli (paraphernalia) can become attention grabbing and produce physiological and psychological responses
What does conditioning say about fetishes?
Sexual deviations are the result of an accidential pairing of abnormal stimulus with sexual arousal or ejaculation (Jaspers, 1963)
Who looked at Little Albert?
Watson
What did Watson observe?
Wanted to see if he can induce a child to fear something he wouldn’t normally
What happened to Little Albert?
Fear of rats induced through associations of loud noises with a white rate
What is exposure therapy?
Patient is confronted with fear producing stimulus in a therapeutic manner
What is extinction in classical conditioning?
Repeated exposure to CS without UCS so the patient cannot avoid the CS
What is flooding?
Full strength confrontation so the patient has to confront their fear through the habituation principle and physical exhaustion resulting in diminished fear response
Why is repeated flooding needed?
Usually necessary to extinguish some fear response
What is a limitation of flooding?
Risk of dropout
Who looked at Little Peter?
Mary Cover Jones
What did Mary Cover Jones do?
Eliminated a 3 year olds fear of rabbits through direct conditioning with his favourite food
Who looked at systematic desensitisation?
Wolpe, 1958
What is systematic desensitisation?
- Clients are taught a enter a state of relaxation
- Patient and therapist collaborated in constructing an anxiety hierarchy of imagined scenes
- In therapy sessions the patients repeatedly imagines the scenes in the hierarchy under conditions of relaxation
What does systematic desensitisation do?
Extinguish the fear response to the stimulus and establish a relaxation response to the previously feared stimulus (counter-conditioning)
What are the highlights of exposure therapy?
No evidence that the size of treatment effects differed between single and multi-session
Single and multi-session associated with large pre-post treatment effect
Exposure therapy for phobias delievered in a single or multi-session format
What is virtual reality exposure therapy?
Allows an immersive experience and development of controlled and constructed hierarchies
What is in vivo exposure therapy?
Is practicable as not everyone has a vivid imagination
What is aversion therapy?
The use of punishment to modify undesirable behaviours. Unpleasant tasting substance on fingernails to discounrage nail-chewing for example
What did Pliny the Elder do?
Attempted to heal alcoholism by putting spiders in alcohol abusers’ drinking glasses
What was conversion therapy used for?
Homosexuality
What is conversion therapy procedure for homosexuality?
The use of voltage through electrodes for aversive deconditioning and photographs, positive conditioning for heterosexual stimuli such as female photographs
What is operant conditioning?
The use of reinforcement to promote behaviour, punishment and extinction
What is positive reinforcement?
The delivery of a rewarding stimulus
What is negative reinforcement?
The removal of an aversive stimulus
What is punishment?
Decreasing in behaviour
What is extinction in operant conditioning?
Withholding of reinforcement will eventually halt the behaviour
Who looked at massed and spaced extinction?
Corty and Coon
What did Corty and Coon find?
Massed extinction extinguished the salivary response to a lemon than spaced extinction
Who found the two factor theory of phobia maintenance?
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning in phobia maintenance?
The pairing of the NS to a UCR
What is operant conditioning in phobia maintenance?
Prevents extinction and produces relief so the avoidance is reinforced
What is conditioned avoidance?
Highly resistant to extinction
What did Seligman et al find?
Dogs exposed to uncontrollable shocks later acted in a passive and helpless manner when exposed to escapable shocks
What is contingency management programs?
Identification and removal of reinforcer of maladaptive behaviours
What is token economies?
Developed for the use with chronic inpatients where the desired behaviours are rewarded with secondary reinforcers of tokens to purchase rewards
What is behavioiral activation?
A systematic use of reinforcement so there is a structured form of therapy for depression and the patient is encouraged to engage in positively reinforcing activities
What is observational learning?
Responses can be acquired without direct experiences of UCS or reinforcers (vicarious reinforcement)
What does vicarious reinforcement do?
Expand the opportunities to learn maladaptive behaviours
Who looked at observational learning?
Bandura et al
What did Bandura et al do?
Bobo doll study, children saw an adult rewarded for aggression showed aggression in free play
What is therapeutic application?
Client learning new skills by imitating another person
What did Bandura find with observational learning?
Live modelling of fearlessness an effective means of treating snake phobia for younger clients in 90% of cases
What are strengths of behaviour therapy?
Results in a short period of crime
Clearly delineated methods
Useful with well-defined problems
Behavioural treatments remain central to the treatment of anxiety disorders
What does Thorpe and Salkovskis say about phobia cognitions?
They have 3 categories: harm, coping and disgust.
Negative cognitions of harm correlated with avoidance.
What does Thorpe and Salkovskis say about phobic thoughts?
Different beliefs that combines to form meaning around the phobic object to the person
What does Thorpe and Salkovskis say about phobic beliefs?
Beliefs are about the perceived harm, the amount of harm and helplessness correlating to emotional intensity.
Beliefs surrounding threat plays a role in the maintenance of anxiety
Who found an overview of one session treatment?
Zlomke and Davis
What is one session treatment?
Exposure therapy for the treatment of specific phobias that has exposure, participant modelling, cognitive challenge and reinforcement in 1 session
What occurs in OST?
Use of anxiety hierarchy.
What did Davis and Ollendick find?
OST targets 3 response components of anxiety (physiological, behavioural and cognitive)
What is the description of OST?
Encourages habituation, extinction of fear, allows active elicitation and challenges cognition for less avoidance and allow rationality
Who defined habituation?
Marks and Tobena
What is habituation?
Decrease of defensive response to stimulus
What are the therapist behaviours in OST?
Therapist in individual setting display behaviours of reality testing, feedback and empathy but in group treatment there is physical contact and determination
What can physical contact do in OST?
Physical contract from a therapist predicts positive outcomes
What does OST begin with?
OST begins with a cognitive behavioural assessment (assessing maintaining factors) and assessing cognitions, avoidant response, anxiety reactions and conditioning
What disorders are there more irrational beliefs?
Anxiety and depression
Who looked at comparing irrational beliefs to depressed and anxious students?
Chang and Bridewell
What did Chang and Bridewell find?
High levels of irrational beliefs in students with depressive symptoms than anxiety
What did Chang find?
Level of irrational beliefs relate to depressive symptoms not life stress
Who looked at emotional responsibility and perfectionism?
Nieuwenhuijsen
What does emotional responsibility and perfectionism persist in?
Depressed groups
What organisation recommends certain treatments for different disorders?
NICE
What does NICE recommend for anxiety?
CBT
What is a strength of NICE?
Large database, basis for reviews and assesses new treatments
