Habituation and Sensitization in Emotion Regulation and Addictions
INSTRUCTIONS
● Compose an essay in current APA format using a title page, in-text citations, and a reference page.
● Answer both questions in each essay with a minimum of 250 words for each question.
● Answer the academic questions using the concepts from the required course materials and reading assignments for this class.
● Biblical perspective questions require the use of the Bible and concepts from the course textbook. Use at least two appropriate scriptures and fully explain the use of the specific scripture. Do not list a scripture or add it to the essay without explaining its use.
● Write in a formal college-level essay style. For this assignment, you may use first person.
● Do not include the essay questions in your submission.
● Include at least one in-text citation per each of the essay questions. A minimum of one scholarly source (either our textbook or a required reading) and the Bible must be included on the reference page.
● Do not include direct textbook quotes. Instead, paraphrase information from the textbook or required readings (using in-text citations).
● Bible quotes are allowed and required.
Essay Prompts
Essay Assignment: History (Module 1)
1. Describe how habituation and sensitization might be involved in emotion regulation and addictions. Also, explain why a habitual user might continue to use even when the pleasurable effects are gone.
2. How might the Bible explain the process of learning? Does God see it as important? Use concepts from the textbook and at least two scriptures to support your answe
Habituation and Sensitization
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Habituation and Sensitization
Question 1
Habituation refers to diminishing the effectiveness of a situation or stimuli by getting accustomed. For example, I could be studying with some music playing in the background; at first, the music could prove distracting, but with time habituation will help me eventually bar the noise from my mind and concentrate on studying. In essence, habituation helps to suppress the effectiveness of a stimulus. It is critical in regulating emotions since it influences how one should behave in the face of stimuli. For example, if some noisy classmates distract me from my studies, I may tend to get angry and tell them off. In other words, I may engage in involuntary behavior triggered by an irritating stimulus, just as Descartes intimated (Panza, 2015). However, by suppressing the distracting noise through habituation, I will manage to shut off the noise, thereby overcoming the possibility of getting angry. The same rings true with addiction since habituation helps individuals overcome the desire of indulging in a particular addictive activity by improvising mechanisms to reduce the effectiveness of drugs taken.
On the flip side, sensitization refers to increasing the effectiveness of a situation or stimuli, which, in turn, controls one behavior. That means one becomes more sensitive to a stimulus as time goes by. For example, if a child gets routinely bullied in school, the stimulus will eventually lead the child to experience sensitization. As such, the child, now unable to regulate their emotions, may start fearing other schoolmates and probably become antisocial. To overcome the effects of sensitization, the child could be easily lured into drug addiction.
A habitual person may continue using a pleasurable stimulus for several reasons. First, the stimuli may have driven the person to acquire new and unavoidable reflexes, as Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov con...