Ashely Winbush

9/5/2014 PSY/300 General Psychology

Carlton Bowden

Phobias and Addiction Paper

In this paper you will find out about phobias and addictions and how the relate to operant and classical conditions. It will explain how phobias are related to classical conditions, and how addictions are related to operant conditions. When reading this paper you will be able to see the difference between operant and classical conditions. It will also explain what extinction mean and how it is achieved in both classical and operant conditioning.
A phobia in term of psychology is a common anxiety disorder. Phobias are irrational fears of an object, situation, or activity. A person avoids they fears, so they won’t have to face them. Studies since Watson and Rayner’s time have proposed classical conditions as an explanation for some human phobias (Ost 1991, Wolpe, 19858). For example through exposure to Injection in childhood many people develop severe emotional reaction (including fainting) to hypodermic reaction. Knowing as an adult that injections are necessary and relatively painless has little impact on the fear. Which elicited automatically. (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Athletes such as football players amuse nurses in student health care because they are strong and fearless on the field, but when it comes to needles they faint at the site of them. Many such fears are acquired elicited through the activation of subcortical neural pathways. (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Phobias can be acquired through classical conditioning by pairing a neutral stimulus with something that cause pain. ("Phobias", 2003). Phobias response can be permanent unless the organism is subjected to the extinction process. In the extinction process one must confront the fear without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus. . ("Phobias", 2003). In this next paragraph you will find about operant conditioning and how it relates to addictions.
Addictions are substance or activity that you depend on, which results when one lacks or limit the ability to stop an activity. Addictions can develop through operant conditioning. Addictions usually result when one associates a response, such as positive emotional response that occurs at the same time as a particular effect, such as engaging in the use of a particular substance or engaging in a particular activity. (Whittaker, 2012). Addiction occurs through operant conditioning because of the repeated response that cause a particular effect, which is continually needed. (Whittaker, 2012). For instance sex addiction. Sex can stimulate one in an abnormal pleasure able way, which cause one to experience a sensation that becomes continually desired or needed. (Whittaker, 2012). In this next paragraph we will see the difference between operant and classical conditioning
Classical and operant conditioning are two types of associative learning that are developed through behavioral psychology. In classical conditioning, an environmental stimulus lead to a learned response, through pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a previously neutral conditioned stimulus. (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). The result is a conditioned response, or learned reflex. Operant conditioning means learning to operate on the environment to produce a consequence. Positive reinforcement occurs when the environment consequences a reward of pay off makes a behavior mostly like to occur. (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Negative reinforcement occurs when termination of an aversive stimulus makes a behavior more likely to occur. C (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). Next paragraph will explain extinction and how it is achieved in both classical and operant conditioning.
In psychology, extinction refers to the gradual weakening of a conditioned stimulus that results in the behavior decreasing or disappearing. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditions stimulus is no longer paired with an