Systematic desensitization usually begins with imagining oneself in a progression of fearful situations and using relaxation strategies that compete with anxiety. It is often used to treat anxiety and phobias, and is based on the concept of counterconditioning.
Exposure is treatment by forced exposure to the feared object; maintained until fear response is extinguished. If you are afraid of heights, you will climb to greater and greater heights until you can conquer your fear; there is a hierarchy to progress through.
Flooding, or massive exposure, is where patients are exposed to a maximum intensity anxiety-producing situation. If imagined, it is called implosion. If you are afraid of bugs, you will be locked in a room with millions of bugs. Contrary to exposure, there is no hierarchy.
Aversive conditioning occurs when a stimulus that produces undesired behavior is paired with an aversive stimulus. In treatment of alcoholism, patients are given disulfiram, which makes them sick when they drink alcohol.
Shaping (or successive approximations) achieves final target behavior by reinforcing successive approximations of the desired response. Reinforcement is gradually modified to move behaviors from the more general to the specific responses desired. A boy with autism is rewarded when he utters one word and subsequently has to utter more words to obtain the same reward.
Stimulus control is where a stimulus inadvertently acquires control over behavior. When this is true, removal of that stimulus can extinguish the response. Watching TV while eating will increase weight, so in order to lose weight you must stop watching TV.
Biofeedback (neurofeedback) uses external feedback via instruments to provide usually unperceived biological information subsequently used to modify internal physiologic states. Certain functions of the autonomic nervous system (pulse, blood pressure, muscle tone, pain perception) can be manipulated through the technique of biofeedback.
Fading is gradually removing the reinforcement without the individual becoming aware of the difference.
Learned helplessness (or the animal model of depression) is where all normal avoidance responses are extinguished. If a rat is shocked and not allowed to escape, eventually the rat will not take an obvious avoidance route even when it is offered.
Symptoms of helplessness in animals include passivity, norepinephrine depletion, and difficulty learning responses that produce relief and weight/appetite loss.
Low rate of response-contingent reinforcement is another explanation for depression. The person receives too little predictable positive reinforcement and may lack the social skills necessary to elicit this positive reinforcement. Depression can be seen as a prolonged extinction schedule; it results in passivity.
A 26-year-old medical student is studying for a medical licensing exam. His mother rewards him when he scores well on his question bank. Which of the following reinforcement schedules would produce the greatest resistance to extinction?
Answer: A