Pavlovian Applications

Question 1

Describe Watson and Rayner’s (1920) work with Albert.

Answer 1

They presented infants with items thought to be innately fearful such as dogs, snakes, fire, etc., and found no evidence of innate fear. Sudden noise acted as an unconditional stimulus to establish fear and crying. For baby Albert, they paired the loud noise with a white rat that he was not afraid of to condition a fearful response to the animal.

Question 2

Who was the first person to systematically study human emotions?

Answer 2

Watson

Question 3

What are conditioned emotional responses? Who coined this term?

Answer 3

• Feelings that are not innate, but learned through Pavlovian conditioning (e.g., fear)
• Watson coined this term

Question 4

Describe how öhman and his colleagues (1976) conditioned fear responses to pictures of snakes

Answer 4

Researchers had college students look at pictures of snakes until they had habituated (experienced no emotional effect). They then paired the photos with an electric shock, and soon the photos (CS) alone evoked a response (CR).

Question 5

Define counterconditioning.

Answer 5

Using Pavlovian procedures to reverse the unwanted effects of conditioning.

Question 6

Describe Mary Cover Jones’ work in counterconditioning

Answer 6

• Peter was a 3-year-old with a fear of rabbits. Jones began bringing a rabbit into view but keeping it at a distance so as not to disturb Peter while enjoying a snack. Each day, Jones brought the rabbit closer, but not too close to avoid making Peter uneasy, continuing to pair the rabbit with his snack. Eventually Peter had no fear of the rabbit would would play with in while eating his snack.

Question 7

What is systematic desensitization?

Answer 7

It is a counterconditioning procedure in which feared stimuli are placed on a hierarchy or scale from least to most fearful. The therapist then gives the fearful individual relaxation training and prompts the client to imagine the least fearful stimulus in the hierarchy, while remaining relaxed. The therapist presents the feared stimuli in progressively more intense forms. If the individual becomes fearful, the therapist reintroduces a state of relaxation and the feared stimulus is presented again in a less intense form. The goal is for the feared stimulus to become a CS for relaxation.

Question 8

What is in vivo desensitization?

Answer 8

It is similar to systematic desensitization except that real feared stimuli, rather than imagined stimuli, are presented. So, for example, when using in vivo desensitization for snake phobia, real snakes would be used rather than imagined snakes. During the initial stage of in vivo desensitization, the client might, for example, go into a building (while relaxed) where a harmless snake was housed in a secure cage.

Question 9

What is conditioned suppression?

Answer 9

The reduction in the rate of ongoing behaviour due to exposure to an aversive CS.

Question 10

Describe how Staats and Staats examined the development of ethnic prejudices due to Pavlovian conditioning.

Answer 10

The authors found that pairing nationalities’ names on a screen with positive, negative or neutral words (spoken aloud) influenced how participants rated each nationality after the experiment. For instance, Arab being paired with terrorists and cowards will affect how people react toward Arabs and the word Arab. If Arab was paired with charitable, religious and peace-loving, the influence of negative associations would weaken.

Question 11

Explain how advertising uses Pavlovian conditioning methods.

Answer 11

• pair the object (something neutral) with something that elicits feelings of fondness, such as a celebrity, to elicit that same reaction when they’re shopping in the store.
• pair competing products with something negative.

Question 12

Describe Gorn’s (1982) study of the effects of musical advertising stimuli on product choice.

Answer 12

He paired familiar and unfamiliar music (US) with blue and beige pens (CS), and the participants would be able to choose either coloured pen at the end. Vast majority chose the coloured pen (CR) that had been paired with the familiar music (UR). The opposite was true of pen colour paired with the unfamiliar music.

Question 13

Describe Stuart’s study of toothpaste advertising.

Answer 13

When the toothpaste (CS) was paired with a positive stimulus (i.e., waterfall; US), it provoked a more positive response towards the toothpaste (CR), such as what would be experienced by the waterfall alone (UR), when compared to being paired with a neutral stimulus.

Question 14

What are paraphilias?

Answer 14

means of achieving sexual pleasure that are widely considered perverse or unnatural.

Question 15

Describe the Freudian take on paraphilias.

Answer 15

He thought that these tendencies were due to unconscious forces, although this has no empirical substantiation.

Question 16

Describe the Pavlovian take on paraphilias.

Answer 16

He found that dogs being hurt before given food eventually began to enjoy the pain. This may be an explanation for paraphilias such as masochism, in that pain and degradation is repeatedly paired with sexual pleasure so that it eventually becomes arousing.

Question 17

What is aversion therapy? Is it effective?

Answer 17

When a CS that is associated with an inappropriate sexual arousal is paired with a US that elicits an unpleasant response (often nausea). It is generally effective. When effective, the stimuli that was once arousing is no longer such, and can even elicit anxiety and discomfort.

Question 18

How did Maletzky (1980) treated exhibitionism?

Answer 18

• Maletzky had a patient imagine that he was about to perform exhibitionist behaviour and then presented him with an extremely unpleasant odour.
• So the imagined scenario (NS) was paired with the smell (US) which triggered discomfort (UR), which when repeatedly paired caused the individual to feel uncomfortable (CR) about the behaviour (CS).

Question 19

Describe Garcia’s taste aversion study with rats.

Answer 19

He gave rats a choice of tap water or sweetened water, and they of course preferred the sweetened. He then exposed the rats to radiation while they drank the sweet water to evoke nausea. The higher the radiation levels, the stronger the aversion. Eventually the taste of the water made the rats sick (conditioned taste aversion).

Question 20

In what two ways did Garcia’s taste aversion study differ from standard demonstrations of Pavlovian conditioning?

Answer 20

1) the CS and US were paired only once, whereas most studies of conditioning involve many pairings
2) the interval between the CS and US was several minutes and most successful conditioning studies require an interval of no more than several seconds.

Question 21

Explain why the ability to acquire a taste aversion has survival value.

Answer 21

Foods that make an animal ill can also be fatal or make the animal vulnerable to attack/disease, so one-trial learning can mean the difference between life and death. The effects of foods are often delayed, so it is advantageous to be able to do this learning with longer intervals between stimuli and response.

Question 22

Are we more apt to develop a taste aversion to familiar foods or to novel foods?

Answer 22

Becoming ill after eating a food that is regularly consumed is less likely to cause an aversion because the individual has eaten it many times and not become sick, and can recognize it as not risky.

Question 23

How do most people acquire conditioned taste aversions?

Answer 23

People acquire conditioned taste aversions by consuming a food and becoming ill soon after (i.e., hours later).

Question 24

Describe Bernstein’s study on the acquisition of conditioned taste aversions in people undergoing chemotherapy.

Answer 24

Children undergoing chemotherapy were more likely to report taste aversions that those not undergoing chemo. When giving the kids a novel ice cream flavour before, those that underwent chemo soon after were less likely to eat it at the next session compared to those who had not had chemo.

Question 25

What is a conditioned allergic reaction?

Answer 25

when a NS is paired with An allergic reaction to elicit that same allergic response.
E.g., researchers exposed guinea pigs to a protein that would elicit an allergic reaction (UR). The researchers paired this protein (US) with a foul odour (NS). After repeated pairings, the guinea pigs had an allergic reaction (CR) to the odour (CS).

Question 26

Describe the Bovbjerg et al. study that examined changes in functioning of the immune system associated with conditional stimuli in the hospital environment.

Answer 26

Chemo reduces immune function, and the researcher found that women undergoing chemo showed decreased immune function when returning to the hospital for treatment. The hospital intel had become a CS for conditioned immunosuppression.

Question 27

How might it be possible to boost immune system function through Pavlovian conditioning procedures?

Answer 27

If a NS was paired with a drug or procedure that facilitates immune functioning, that stimulus might then become a CS for conditioned immunofacilitation.