Aversives

While most researchers equate it with a high level of pessimism, the learned helplessness experiment by Seligman helps to explain it better detail. There are two parts of the experiment- one for humans and one for animals, or in this case, a dog. For the dog, the scientists strapped its paws to the floor and exposed it to non-lethal electric shocks, which we will refer to as the uncontrollable aversive stimuli. At first, the animal tries to escape, but it fails, and it soon learns that the uncontrollable aversive stimulus is uncontrollable. When a means of escape is made available, via a door, and unstrap the dog, it does not try to escape, and the scientists must show it that it is possible to escape from the electric shocks. With humans, the electric shocks are replaced with anagrams. In this case, a group of people are given anagrams to solve, but they are unsolvable. However, in the test phase, the anagrams are solvable. The group that was exposed to the unsolvable anagrams solved fewer ones than those in the control group, and they often gave up, reporting that they felt awful (lecture). According to the textbook, there is now a good amount of research that suggests that when people believe…

Thus, Seligman and his colleagues concluded that it is the uncontrollability of the aversive situation that triggers the animal's failure to escape, not the shock per se. Subsequently, Seligman and his colleagues conducted a variety of experiments on animals and then humans to examine the uncontrollability effect on helplessness. For instance, Hiroto and Seligman’s (1975) illustrated the concept of learned helplessness in humans in which they gave three groups of college students four sets of…

health insurance and medical doctors, African Americans in the United States are at a higher risk than whites when it comes to diseases. For instance, African Americans are more likely to die of heart disease, stroke, prostate, and breast cancer, then whites and African Americans children are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized for asthma, than white children. (Rosenblum & Travis, 2016, p. 304) This disparity could be contributed to many factors, such as the reduction of spending on…

during an aversive event to enable threat learning. To test the hypothesis that orexin carries information important for aversive memory formation, they blocked the OrxR1 activity of an auditory threat conditioning paradigm. The OrxR1 antagonist SB 334867 was administrated by intracerebro-ventricular infusion before fear conditioning and conditioned freezing behavior was examined. Here, a freezing behavior is considered to be a general reaction to perceived threat in a long-term memory (LTM)…

Aversive racism is when there is racism towards a person or group of people that is hidden or not obvious. For example, if someone thinks bad about the African American around them but does not actually say anything to them, yet it is obvious the person does not like them, then this is aversive racism. In this article, aversive racism is shown when the article talks about how the government treats Muslims differently with increased monitoring. The American government does not clearly say that…

Negative reinforcement expands the likelihood of a response that eliminates or avoids an aversive condition. Furthermore, this form of reinforcement transpires when something already existing is removed as a consequence of an individual's behavior, fashioning a positive result for that individual. Negative means taking away something that an individual does not like, rather than adding something the individual likes. In this way, negative reinforcement is based on the decrease of something…

Antidepressants such as fluoxetine have also successfully decreased sex drive but have not effectively targeted sexual fantasies. Research suggests that cognitive-behavioral models are effective in treating paraphiliacs. Such models may include aversive conditioning, confrontation of cognitive distortions which is especially effective in groups, victim empathy (show videos of victims and consequences to victims), assertiveness training (social skills training, time management, structure),…

B.F Skinner’s Influence in Psychology B.F Skinner is a pioneer in the field of psychology namely for his work in behavioralism. Even today his axioms are used to aid phobias and addictions. Furthermore, he invented the theory of operant conditioning, which is now considered foundational in psychology and is still applicable to the mind’s processes. Operant conditioning involves a multitude different principles that leave it relevant in today’s psychology, these principles include: shaping,…

transitions, self-help skills, attempts to complete tasks, and generalized responding. In 1994, a study using high probability requests with an autistic preschool replicated earlier studies that high probability requests could improve compliance rates for autistic children (Houlihan, Jacobson, Brandon, 1994). High-probability commands build instructional momentum by giving several easy to complete tasks to the learner that have a high compliance rates, followed by a request to complete a task…

PUNISHMENT According to Kazdin, punishment is the presentation of an aversive event or the removal of a positive event following a response that decreases the frequency of that response (Gines et al, 1989 p. 102). HOW PUNISHMENT WORKS After studying psychological mechanisms underlying punishment done by researchers, Kazdin has identified several elements that influence its effectiveness. These elements are the following (Gines et al, p. 102-104): 1. Schedule of punishment Generally, punishment…