Theories of addiction Flashcards
Why do people take drugs?
Experimentation, peer pressure, pleasure
Adler & Rosenberg (1994): reasons generally fell into either positive effects or negative effects
What is the disease model?
Addicts are ‘victims’ of chronic brain disease
What is the failure of choice model?
Addicts chose drugs because of personal reasons
Heyman’s view of addiction
Against disease model; remission rates are high thus must be choice
Why is set & setting important?
Nature of experience depends entirely on set and setting
Leary (1969); Sinberg (1986)
How do you define addiction?
WHO (1981): compulsive drug-using
Jaffe (1990): chronic relapsing disorder
What is Clark Hull Drive Theory?
Excitatory potential = habit strength * drive strength
What is the self-medication hypothesis?
Drugs are used to self-medicate
Can explain co-morbidity
What is physical dependence hypothesis?
Drug use is sustained to avoid unpleasant consequences
What are distress syndrome reduction theories?
People continue to take drugs to ease distress syndrome, but drugs differ dramatically in the level of stress the cause therefore difficult to explain different drugs
What is the conditioned withdrawal model of addiction?
Wikler (1948): described how opioid addicts report ‘mini withdrawals’ during therapy
4 tenets:
- Withdrawal is aversive
- Drug use relieves withdrawal
- Withdrawal can be conditioned to cues
- Conditioned and unconditioned withdrawals stimulate drug-seeking
What homeostasis?
Maintaining equilibrium in all systems, including brain rewards systems
Negative feedback; effect produced by an action serves to diminish or terminate that action
What is the (conditioned) opponent process model?
Stimulus triggers A process, which triggers slave B process
Repeated stimulus causes B process to grow, but not A process
Therefore B>A (tolerance)
What is Koob and LeMoal’s homeostatic dysregulation model?
B continually grows in addiction resulting in lowered allostatic set point and permanent anhedonic state
Take drug to return to system to normal
What are the problems with negative reinforcement models?
Symptoms subside where there are no clear symptoms of psychological withdrawal but first month is easier despite worst withdrawal - why?
Childress (1988)/Childress & O’Brein (1999): withdrawal isn’t sickness and cues trigger drug-like not drug-opposite effects
