Lecture 11 Counter conditioning

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1 Lecture 11 Counter conditioning
Behavior Analysis Lecture 11 Counter conditioning

2 Review So far, we have talked about ways to increase or decrease the rate of operant behavior Remember that operant behavior is the kind of behavior that we think of a voluntary or willful More precisely it can be defined as behavior modified by its consequences Respondent behavior, on the other hand, is modified its antecedents Operant behavior is often voluntary, while respondent behavior is often reflexive or involuntary But the best way to remember the distinction is in terms of consequences and antecedents In this course we have talked about how to change operant behavior, Today we will talk about how to change respondent behavior with procedures based on Pavlovian conditioning

3 Pavlovian procedures The great giant of respondent behavior is Ivan Pavlov No doubt the name rings a bell ; ) Pavlov was a Russian physiologist whose special interest was in digestion In particular, he was interested in the function of the salivary glands Before long, however, he began to witness that the dog would start to salivate before it received any food The dog would begin salivating when it saw the food, or even the person bringing the food, or even upon hearing the footsteps of the person bringing the food Pavlov actually found this pretty annoying, because his research was focusing on the amount of saliva different foods produced, but the dogs were salivating even before they received any food!

4 Pavlovian procedures On seeing this effect, Pavlov changed his research area to study why dogs salivated before they received the food What he found was that salivating could be induced by any object that had regularly been paired with food For example, if you repeatedly rang a bell and then put food in the dogs mouth, then soon the dog would salivate when it heard the bell Pavlov even found that the dog would salivate at the sight of a geometric form, like a circle!

5 Pavlovian procedures Pavlov called this procedure conditioning
Pavlovian Conditioning: any procedure by which an event comes to elicit a response by being paired with an event that elicits that response Pavlov began by noting that if you put food into a dogs mouth, it would salivate. Pavlov called the food an unconditional stimulus, and the salivating an unconditional response He called a bell that elicits salivating a conditional stimulus, and salivating at the sound of the bell a conditional response

6 Pavlovian procedures Now if Pavlovian conditioning involved only bells and salivating, Pavlov's work would be of little interest to us. But Pavlov's work has huge implications for the treatment of behavior problems In fact, Pavlov spent much time writing about these things All sorts of events can become conditional stimuli, and all sorts of respondent behavior can become conditional responses

7 Pavlovian procedures Pavlovian conditioning has helped us to understand all emotional reactions But fear has been of special interest to behaviorists because it is the basis of so much human suffering In one example British behaviorist Hans Eysenck treated a man for impotence. After interviewing, he found that the client only had trouble in his own bedroom. When he was on holidays he had no problems. He also found that when the man was younger, he had an affair with a married woman and was caught and beaten up by the husband. Eysenck hypothesized that the painful beating might serve as an unconditional stimulus for fear, and anything that was in the environment when the beating happened might have become a conditional stimulus for fear

8 Pavlovian procedures What are some things that might have become conditioned stimuli? The man who beat him The wife Or even intercourse itself However, the man who beat him and the love affair wife are not present in the bedroom with his current wife, and he manages to have intercourse whilst on holidays That tells us that the CS has to be something in his home, maybe something in his bedroom It is likely that there is something in the room that is similar to something in the room he was beaten in

9 Pavlovian procedures In order to find the CS Eysenck asked the client to describe the room and see if there were similarities with his current bedroom It was found that wall paper in both bedrooms was very similar! The wallpaper had become a CS for fear, which prevented him from performing sexually He had no problem having sex on holidays because the wallpaper was different in hotels rooms Note: there seems to be very little thinking with Pavlovian conditioning i.e. the client did not put together all of the pieces of the puzzle to explain his behavior. Instead it was reflexive. It just happened. We don’t have to think about our environment before it can affect our behavior!

10 Pavlovian procedures Ok, lets say Wall paper guy is your client. How do you cure the problem? How about repaper his bedroom. If you take the CS away then it can no long function as a CS! Eysenck advised the client to do just this, and the impotence problems went away! The wall paper guy gives us an example of how Pavlovian conditioning can contribute towards behavior problems But this case is far from typical, most people who seek help for unpleasant emotional reactions cannot just remove the item that arouses the fear

11 Counterconditioning For example, the person who is scared of spiders cannot remove all spiders in the world, and the business executive who is scared of flying cannot be a business executive if he never flies. Fortunately, they can often be eliminated by conditioning The use of conditioning to undo the undesirable effects of conditioning is called counterconditioning Counterconditioning: the use of Pavlovian conditioning to undo the adverse effects of earlier conditioning

12 Counterconditioning The first time counterconditioning was ever used was a with a three year old boy who was scared of rabbits Peter would become very upset any time a Rabbit was placed near him. The researcher, Mary Jones, assumed that this fear occurred because rabbits, or something close to rabbits had been paired with some fearful event. So Jones decided to see if she could undo his fear with conditioning In order to do this Jones put the rabbit a little distance from Peter while he ate crackers and milk. In this way Jones paired the conditional stimulus (rabbit) with an unconditional stimulus, or negative stimulus with a positive stimulus

13 Counterconditioning Each day Jones brought the Rabbit a little closer to Peter This continued until Peter was happy to have the rabbit on his lap Counterconditioning counters the effects of naturally occurring conditioning It consists of pairing a stimulus that elicits inappropriate respondent behavior with a stimulus that elicits appropriate respondent behavior. There are two main types of counter conditioning: Desensitization training Sensitization training

14 Desensitization training
In desensitization training, counterconditioning is used to reduce the strength of a negative emotional response to a particular kind of stimulus and situation Desensitization training: any form of counter conditioning that reduces an inappropriate negative response to an event This is accomplished by pairing the stimulus that elicits the negative emotional reaction with another stimulus that elicits a positive reaction Although this can be done in various ways, the most popular technique is called systematic desensitization

15 Systematic Desensitization
Systematic desensitization was developed by Joseph Wolpe, who was a famous behavior therapist. It is best used in the treatment of phobias but has been used with other anxiety based disorders as well The procedure consisted of three steps: Constructing a hierarchy Relaxation training Counter conditioning

16 Constructing a hierarchy
This refers to identifying the kinds of situations that arouse fear and arranging them into a hierarchy from least to most upsetting At the top of the ladder would be the situation that makes the person most uncomfortable i.e. having a snake around one’s neck At the bottom of the ladder would be something that creates no discomfort i.e. seeing a picture of a snake It is important to note that the hierarchy is created by the reactions of the client, and not by social convention or intuition Usually, in addition to interviewing the client about these things, therapists may also gather information via self report questionnaires One could even take a physiological measure, like skin conductance

17 Constructing a hierarchy
Wolpe also talked about ‘subjective units of disturbance’ (SUDS) SUDS is a scale that attempts to measure the degree of disturbance caused by situations E.g. the bottom item on the ladder should have a SUDS score of 0, whilst the top item should have a SUDS score of 100. There is no prescribed number for how many steps should be in a hierarchy, but many say 10 items is the minimum, with many ladders having steps. Importantly, the lowest item should be not disturbing, the highest item should be very disturbing and the items in between should only be separated by small steps.

18 Relaxation training Once the hierarchy is constructed, the next step is relaxation training A physician named Edmund Jacobsen realized that many people tense their muscles without knowledge He therefore designed a training program that aimed to enable clients to spot tense muscles, and have the ability to relax them Wolpe thought that this training could be used in systematic desensitization So that consistently pairing a frightening situation with relaxation, the situation will come to elicit relaxation rather than fear

19 Counter conditioning The third and longest step in systematic desensitization is counterconditioning. In this step the therapist pairs situations in the hierarchy with relaxation The procedure is this: Client is asked to describe a step on the ladder, usually with eyes closed If at any time the client feels anxious he has to raise his index finger When this happens, the therapist asks him to stop imagining the scene, and to relax After relaxing several seconds, the client is to return to imagining the scene When the client is able to imagine the scene for 10 seconds and to relax he is closer to the next step When the client has done this twice, they are ready to move onto the next step

20 Counter conditioning By repeatedly pairing the imagined situations in the hierarchy with relaxation, the client is able to work up the ladder without ever feeling too much discomfort Treatment can take anywhere between 1 session to a few months depending on how severe the phobia is And often the therapist will ask the client to take their new skills and practice them at home

21 Queries ‘Are we suggesting that people can overcome their fears by simply imaging scary situations? Does the therapist not have to expose the client to the actual situation?’ Usually imagining works fine. Of course the client is encouraged to participate in real situations related to their hierarchy, but only if they don’t arouse anxiety Its hard to believe that when a person is able to imagine a situation that they are then ready to be in that situation But what were talking about here is generalization; changes in behavior in one situation occur in other situations as well I guess systematic desensitization is surprising because the training and testing situations are very different However much research show that improvements in therapy sessions do generalize to real life

22 Systematic Desensitization
Wolpe’s procedure has proved remarkably effective with a wide variety of clients and problems. Since Wolpe introduced the system several variations of the procedure have been tried These include In vivo desensitization Self desensitization Flooding

23 In vivo desensitization
It is possible to use systematic desensitization in actual situations This is called in vivo desensitization The words ‘in vivo’ literally mean ‘in life’. Instead of imagining a disturbing scene, the client actually confronts that scene! The therapist still goes through the three steps, only situations involved are real rather than imagined You may wonder why all systematic desensitization is not in vivo. The answer is that is just is not practical, possible and convenient most of the time Research also suggests that both ways have similar clinical outcomes i.e. they both seem to work as well as each other

24 Self desensitization Another variation of Wolpe’s procedure is for the client to undergo the procedure without the help of a therapist This is called self – desensitization The idea is that people can build hierarchies, teach themselves relaxation and perform counter conditioning by themselves, provided they receive some basic instruction Research suggests that this variation can also be successful. Unfortunately however, without the structure and support of a therapist many never fully complete the procedure

25 Flooding The critical difference between systematic desensitization and flooding is that the latter abandons the hierarchy and the gradual pace of therapy Instead the client is asked to imagine the worst possible situation right from the beginning! The exposure continues until the conditional response, the anxiety, no longer occurs Flooding has two main drawbacks The therapy session is anxiety provoking. The object is to expose the person to the fearful situation until it no longer evokes discomfort Second, there is less room for error in flooding – there is more chance of severe reactions from clients

26 Sensitization training
So far all of the procedures we have talked about concern desensitization training Sensitization training, on the other hand, is used to reduce the strength of a positive emotional response Sensitization training: any form of counterconditioning that reduces an inappropriate positive response to an event This is accomplished by pairing the stimulus that elicits a positive emotional reaction with another stimulus that elicits a negative reaction

27 Sensitization training
Sometime people struggle to understand why it is a problem to have a positive emotional reaction towards something But the word ‘inappropriate’ is most important here. There are many situations in which people feel inappropriate positive emotions towards something E.g. an obese person probably feels inappropriately positive about food How about pedophilia? This literally means love of children, but the term refers to sexual interest in children

28 Aversion therapy So sensitization involves reducing inappropriate positive reactions with counterconditioning This can be done in various ways, but perhaps the most commonly used procedure is aversion therapy Aversion therapy is a form of counter conditioning where the conditional stimulus is paired with a stimulus that elicits a negative emotional response The idea is to reduce the attraction that the person feels towards the conditional stimulus One classic example of aversion therapy was reported by Raymond (1956) who treated a patient that liked to destroy hand bags and baby carriers! In order to treat him, Raymond presented a baby carrier or handbag to pram man just before a nauseating drug took effect. The man would look at one of these objects and then feel sick to his stomach Pram mans problems were gone within a couple of weeks of treatment

29 Covert sensitization Aversion therapy is the best known sensitization procedure, another popular one is covert sensitization Like aversion therapy covert sensitization involves pairing an object/situation that arouses positive feelings with one that arouses negative feelings The difference with covert sensitization is that the objects or situations are merely imagined Again it may be seem surprising that imagining a situation could translate to the real world, but imagination can have strong effects! Its important to note that evidence for sensitization training is very poor, for example many researchers have tried to stop problematic behavior with this procedure, like smoking, but never could

30 Rules for counter conditioning
Many experimental studies with counter conditioning have demonstrated that it is an effective way to modify respondent behavior However, this will always depend on using the procedure in the right way There are four rules that are especially important Define the target behavior Identify the stimuli to be paired Pair the appropriate stimuli Monitor the results

31 Define the target behavior
As always, it is essential to have a clear idea of what behavior is to be changed

32 Identify the stimuli to be paired
Counter conditioning is Pavlovian conditioning used to counter the effects of past learning. In counter conditioning, a stimulus that elicits an inappropriate response is paired with one that elicits a very different reaction To do desensitization or sensitization training properly, it is necessary that the appropriate stimuli be identified before the training begins

33 Pair the appropriate stimuli
Correctly pairing the appropriate stimuli means presenting them so that the one that elicits the inappropriate response begins slightly before the one that elicits an appropriate response

34 Monitor the results In any intervention we have to monitor the results
If used properly counter conditioning procedures can have immediate effects If desired effects are not being obtained, the intervention must be evaluated to determine why it is not being effective.

35 Flash card Pavlovian conditioning Counter conditioning
any procedure by which an event comes to elicit a response by being paired with an event that elicits that response Counter conditioning the use of Pavlovian conditioning to undo the adverse effects of earlier conditioning Desensitization training any form of counter conditioning that reduces an inappropriate negative response to an event Sensitization training any form of counter conditioning that reduces an inappropriate positive response to an event