Classical Conditioning
Consider the following scenario: You join a group of friends for a meal at a local Chinese restaurant. You all eat the same meal but several hours after dinner, you develop severe stomach cramps and vomiting that lasts for three days. You are convinced that you have food poisoning even though your friends have no symptoms. You visit your doctor, who tells you that you have the stomach flu. A week later, you are feeling back to normal except when someone brings up the restaurant. Even the mention of Chinese food or the restaurant triggers feelings of intense nausea. Six months later, you still refuse to eat Chinese food and feel sick when you smell or think about the food. What has happened? Most likely, you have experienced classical conditioning. Let’s take a look:
- Prior to this incident, you did not associate Chinese food with illness. Before the conditioning occurred, thinking or talking about Chinese food (neutral stimulus) did not elicit a negative response.
- Getting the stomach flu is an unconditioned stimulus. Your response—getting sick—represents an unconditioned response.
- Because you got sick around the time you ate Chinese food, the food has become a conditioned stimulus. Therefore, when presented with this conditioned stimulus (Chinese food), you demonstrate a conditioned response (feeling sick). In reality, the food actually had nothing to do with your illness. However, you have learned to associate Chinese food with getting sick.
Now that you have some information about how classical conditioning can be applied to an everyday scenario, conduct an online search to find out about a specific phobia. Research shows that extreme fears and phobias often develop through classical conditioning. It may be helpful to find an article or a Website that illustrates how classical conditioning is applied to the specific phobia. Once you have identified an article or a Website, answer the following questions:
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Using your textbook, the food poisoning example, and the information from your article or Website, explain how the phobia might develop. Identify an example of each of the following for the phobia you selected: a. Neutral stimulusb. Unconditioned stimulusc. Conditioned responsed. Conditioned stimuluse. Conditioned response
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Assume that 20-year-old Gabriel was treated for aquaphobia, an abnormal or persistent fear of water. At one point, Gabriel’s phobia was so severe that he refused to even sit in a bathtub. However, after nearly six months of therapy, Gabriel’s fear had drastically subsided. That is, extinction had occurred. Not only would Gabriel take a bath as an alternative to showering, he would join his friends in a hot tub from time to time. A few days ago, Gabriel was in the hot tub when a friend jumped in, splashing water in Gabriel’s face. He panicked, immediately got out, and now refuses to even take a bath. In other words, the fear response has returned. According to your textbook, what phenomenon is Gabriel experiencing?
The reappearance of a previously extinguished conditioned response (in this example, fear of water) after a period of time without exposure to the conditioned stimulus is called spontaneous recovery. This indicates that extinction does not represent unlearning. Rather, the learned response may decline or go away for a period of time but it is not completely eliminated or erased.