U-2 ABA

Watch the Unit 2 Lecture. Hello again, students. This week you have read about respondent conditioning's role in phobias and anxiety. You have also learned about several interventions that can be used to treat phobias and anxiety. In this lecture, we will focus on the two desensitization procedures, systematic decencitization and vivo decencization. Another term for respondent conditioning is classical conditioning. You have probably heard of classical conditioning before. Examples of respondent behavior include, when food is placed in the mouth, then salvation occurs. If a puff of air is blown in the eye, then the eye blinks. Milton Burger Chapter eight, Table one, it lists examples of unconditioned bodily responses in humans. Table 82 lists bodily responses involved in autonomic nervous system arousal. These tables provide good examples of respondent behaviors that are involved in respondent conditioning. Respondent behaviors are similar within a species. When presented with a stimulus, all physic, healthy members of a species will react with the same unconditioned reflex. All dogs salivate when meat powder is placed in the mouth. All humans blink when a puff of air is blown into the eye. Respondent conditioning focuses on stimuli that elicit bodily responses. Environmental stimuli come to elicit bodily responses through pairing. Respondent conditioning occurs when a previously neutral stimulus, meaning a stimulus that did not elicit any response in the organism, is paired with the unconditioned stimulus. This means the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are presented together. As a result of this pairing, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus and elicits the conditioned response similar to the unconditioned response. This pairing is learning. Let's walk through these terms. An unconditioned stimulus is a stimulus that triggers the bodily response prior to any learning. Unconditioned responses are the bodily responses elicited by the unconditioned stimulus even though no conditioning or learning has occurred. For example, when food, the unconditioned stimulus is placed in the mouth, salivation, the unconditioned response occurs. An unconditioned response occurs in all healthy people when an unconditioned stimulus is presented when food is in your mouth. Salivate conditioned stimulus is a previously neutral stimulus that has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. Just about any stimulus can become a conditioned stimulus if it is paired repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus. For example, pairing a bell with the presentation of food in the mouth. Food in the mouth, illicit salivation after several pairings of the food with the bell. When the bell is presented alone, the bell illicit salvation, salivation, and response to the bell is considered a conditioned response. Unconditioned response and the conditioned response are always similar behaviors, often the same bodily response. In the example I just described, the unconditioned response and the conditioned response for both salvation. Most problems that we would label as fears or anxiety disorders are characterized by both respondent behavior and operant behavior. The respondent behavior is the bodily response of anxiety elicited by a particular conditioned stimulus. The operant behavior is the escape or avoidance behavior, reinforced by the removal of the feared stimulus and reduction in the unpleasant anxiety. These bodily responses or the autonomic nervous system arousal, are what we refer to as anxiety. Although it is clear that the respondent conditioning plays a role in phobias, we may not know how the fear developed through respondent conditioning. Meaning we may not know how the conditioned stimulus, the feared stimulus, became conditioned to elicit the conditioned responsive anxiety. Knowing what we know about respondent conditioning, we can assume that at some point in the past, a neutral event, the object that is now feared was paired with the unconditioned stimulus or another conditioned stimulus. As a result of this pairing, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus and elicits the same response that was elicited by the unconditioned stimulus. Let's look at an example. A child gets bitten by a dog. Now has a fear of dogs. The painful stimulus of the bite was an unconditioned stimulus that elicits autonomic arousal, an unconditioned response. The dog itself is a neutral stimulus that becomes a conditioned stimulus because the dog's presence is paired with the painful stimulus. Prior to pairing, the dog was not feared, it was neutral. Now, when the child sees the dog a conditioned stimulus, after pairing with the unconditioned stimulus, it elicits the conditioned response, similar to the unconditioned response that was elicited by the painful stimulus of the dog bite. Systematic desensitization involves practicing relaxation skills while imagining the feared stimulus. The client is first taught to relax. You're reading for this week listed several relaxation procedures including progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing, attention, focusing exercises, and behavioral relaxation training. Together with your client, you select which relaxation procedure you both feel will be most appropriate. After the client learns to relax using the relaxation procedure, you create a hierarchy of fear eliciting stimuli. The client rates different levels of the feared stimulus on a scale of zero to 100. There are several examples of behavior hierarchies in Milton Burger chapter 24, table 24 dash three. It is after the client has learned to relax and develop the behavior hierarchy that the real work begins. The client begins to imagine the first scene of the hierarchy while maintaining a relaxed state. As long as the client can maintain a relaxed state, the therapist moves on to the next scene in the hierarchy. This progresses until the client can imagine the most feared scene while remaining relaxed. Systematic desensitization works because relaxation and autonomic nervous system arousal experienced during fear are incompatible. You cannot experience fear well relaxed. In vivo desensitization follows the same pattern as systematic desensitization, with one big difference. In vivo desensitization involves being exposed to the feared stimulus. In real life, not the imagination, everything else remains the same. The client just experiences the scene in real life and practices maintaining relaxation. Main advantage of Nvivo desensitization has over systematic desensitization is that with N Vivo desensitization you do not have to generalize the skill. With systematic desensitization, the client would need to generalize from their imagination to real life. A downside of nvivo desensitization is the cost and the time involved. If a client's fear is flying in an airplane, this could get quite expensive. Thank you for listening to the unit Two discussion board lecture. Read the following scenario. Marla is a 24-year-old woman who recently graduated from college and began a new job at an advertising firm. She has come to see you, a behavior analyst, for what she reports as extreme fear of social situations. When she is in a group of 3 or more people, she says her heart starts racing, she gets sweaty, she stutters, and she shakes. In college, Marla tripped and fell in front of the class on the way to giving a class speech. Some of the students laughed. Afterwards, she began avoiding parties and large gatherings and tended to keep to herself. Now that she is working, it is becoming increasingly difficult for her to avoid social situations. Her boss and co-workers expect her to attend office functions and client parties, as networking is a large part of the job. Marla is very artistic and creative and has already designed several successful ads for clients, but she is afraid that she will lose her job because of the difficulties she is experiencing socially. Your response should be written as if you are explaining your plan to Marla. Identify a possible unconditioned stimulus and an unconditioned response in Marla's case. Identify the neutral stimulus, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response from her case. Use the diagram below. Reference Purdue Global. (2018). Relationships between an unconditioned and conditioned stimulus to response. Behavior Modification: Principles and Procedures Raymond G. Miltenberger. Explain to Marla how you could help her modify her behavior utilizing either systematic desensitization or in vivo desensitization. Provide a rationale for your selection. Include the following in your behavior modification procedure: A sample behavior hierarchy with at least 10 situations At least one relaxation procedure A description of how relaxation procedures and the behavior hierarchy are used together.