PSYC 2600 – Chapter 9 – Escape, Avoidance, and Punishment PDF

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PSYC 2600 – Chapter 9 – Escape, Avoidance, and Punishment Escape and Avoidance  Negative reinforcement is associated with two types of behaviour: o Escape behaviour in which performance of the behaviour terminates the aversive stimulus o Avoidance behaviour in which performance of the behaviour prevents the aversive stimulus from occurring  Shuttle avoidance procedure is where one learns to escape form an aversive stimulus and then to avoid it o An animal has to shuttle back and forth in a box to avoid an aversive stimulus  Ex/ a rat in a camber must climb over a low barrier to stop feeling a shock  This procedure demonstrates that the rat first learns to escape from the shock then tries to avoid the shock  Two-process theory of avoidance is an early attempt to explain avoidance behaviour which states that two processes are involved in learning an avoidance response: 1. A classical conditioning process which is a classical conditioning of a fear response a. Ex/ a rat in a shuttle avoidance procedure Light (NS): shock (US) – fear (UR) Light (CS) – fear (CR) 2. An operant conditioning process where if the CS generates a conditioned fear response then moving away from the CS should result in a reduction of fear a. Ex/ reduction of fear is a negative reinforcer Light (SD) climb over barrier (R) – reduction in fear (SR)  There are some problems with this theory o Avoidance responses are often extremely persistent, and the two-process theory cannot account for such persistence  Ex/ dogs continue to jump a barrier to avoid shock for hundreds of trials even when no shock is presented o Anxiety conservation hypothesis states that an avoidance response usually occur so quickly that there is insufficient exposure to the CS for the conditioned fear to fully extinguish – that is, a good dead of the conditioned fear is conserved because exposures o the CS are too brief for extinction to take place o After repeated avoidance trials the animals appeared to show no evidence of fear and continued to make the avoidance response  If the animals were no longer afraid of the CS, how could avoidance of the CS have been negatively reinforced by a reduction in fear?  May become significantly less fearful with experience but there is no evidence that they become completely non-fearful  As long as some fear remains, the avoidance response continues  Fear reduction is still functioning as a negative reinforcer for the behaviour  OCD and the two-process theory: o Obsessions and compulsions have opposite effects on anxiety:

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Obsessions increase anxiety Compulsions decrease anxiety  Ex/ a person who has a contamination fear, the thought of contamination is stressful, but sanitization removes contamination and relieves the stress  One-process theory states the act of avoidance is negatively reinforced simply by the lower rate of aversive stimulation o Ex/ a rat persistently climbs over the barrier when the light comes on because this action results in a decreased rate of shock and not because it results in decreased feelings of fear Avoidance Conditioning and Phobias  Avoidance learning appears to be a fundamental process in the development and maintenance of phobic behaviour o It is studied using rats, but are rats and humans really that similar?  Animals avoid the US while people avoid the CS  The avoidance behaviour conditions less readily in experiments than it does in phobias  Experimental avoidance is less than 100% certain  OCS vs phobia: o OCD involves an active avoidance response  Ex/ a person with OCD will clean often o Phobias involve a passive avoidance response  A person with a phobia will avoid dogs  Punishment is the weakening of the strength of a behaviour through application of an aversive stimulus (positive) or removal of an appetitive stimulus (negative) o The punisher comes after the behaviour  Negative punishment vs extinction o Does the behaviour grows weaker because performing the behaviour  Extinction – no longer leads to something  Negative punishment – leads to the removal of something that you would otherwise possess  Problems with the use of punishment: 1. Punishment of an inappropriate behaviour does not directly strengthen the occurrence of appropriate behaviour, it may even result in a general suppression of behaviour 2. The person delivering the punishment could become and SD for punishment, the unwanted behaviour is suppressed only when that person is present 3. Punishment might simply teach the individual to avoid the person who delivered the punishment 4. Punishment is likely to elicit a strong emotional response which might interfere with any subsequent attempts to teach appropriate behaviours 5. Punishment can sometimes elicit an aggressive reaction, the aggression may be directed at the punisher or another target

6. The use of punishment might teach the person that punishment is an acceptable means of controlling behaviour 7. The use of punishment is often strongly reinforced, often because the punisher likes the results and is enticed to punish more  Effective use of punishment 1. Punishment should be immediate rather than delayed, this aids in the association between the punishment and the unwanted behaviour 2. Punishment should consistently follow each occurrence of the unwanted behaviour 3. Punishment should be intense enough from the outset to suppress the target behaviour, this can help avoid the use of very intense and abusive punishment 4. Punishment is more effective when accompanied by an explanation, thus it is easier to avoid punishment in the future 5. Punishment of inappropriate behaviour should be combined with positive reinforcement for appropriate behaviour  Learned helplessness is a decrement in learning ability that results from repeated exposure to uncontrollable aversive events o Ex/ researchers compared the behaviours of dogs in an inescapable-shock condition with the behaviours of dogs in an escapable-shock condition o The prior exposure to inescapable shock seemed to impair the dog’s ability to learn to escape shock when escape later became possible o Children who attempted to answer unsolvable problems later had considerable difficulty answering solvable problems o Math-anxious individuals who quickly give up when confronted by any sort of math problem o People who suffer a series of uncontrollable aversive events – loss of a job, physical illness, divorce, and so on – may become extremely passive and despondent...