Respondent Conditioning: A Summary

Fear is a two part behavior, the respondent component is the physiological responses from the stimuli, anxiety. The second part is operant, in that a person will avoid or flee a stimulus until the response decreases (Koehler, 2015). This is negative reinforcement, as it is the removal of the adverse stimuli. Together these responses make up fear (Miltenberger, 2015). Therefore, Jackie’s situation could be explained as both respondent (also known as classical) conditioning, and operant conditioning.
Respondent behaviors are induced from antecedent stimuli; antecedent stimuli manipulation creates respondent conditioning. Respondent behaviors are bodily responses that have a physiological basis, the bodily responses involved in autonomic arousal …show more content…
This is a process whereby Jackie will gradually be exposed to dogs in real-life. To begin this procedure, the therapist would first have to teach her the relaxation response, that is, strategies to replace the physiological effects of anxiety with alternative responses that are relaxing, such as deep breathing and attention focusing exercises (Miltenberger, 2015). Together the therapist and Jackie would establish a hierarchy of which the exposure would occur while Jackie applied the relaxation response in place of the fear …show more content…
Gradually the dog and cage would be brought closer. Eventually the dog would not be in a cage, and Jackie would likely be exposed to dogs of all sizes and ages, until at which point she was able to pet the dog without fear, or at least be in the presence of a free-roaming dog without panicking. By experiencing each step in the hierarchy, and receiving praise at each step from the therapist, Jackie’s fear would gradually reduce to the point she could be relaxed in the presence of dogs, having overcome her fear, and have no difficulties being around dogs when she marries her dog-training boyfriend. Applying operant conditioning to Emma’s behavior in case three, we see that Emma’s behavior may or may not be positive reinforcement in the form of not having to pick up her toys, attention, she gets her way, she keeps playing, and retains access to her toys. She may receive negative reinforcement by escaping the act of picking up her toys, and avoiding the continued prompting to pick up her mess. The target behavior is throwing tantrums, and the operational definition of tantrum is falling on the floor, kicking, screaming, crying, throwing things, and pounding on the floor with her hands and