P1: PSYCHOLOGY

An antecedent is an event that sets the occasion for behaviour or what happens right before a behaviour occurs. Antecedents can be factors in an individual’s external environment such as going to the shop. Behaviour is anything that someone does. The behaviour of the child in the shop is a tantrum simply because the individual wants some sweets. A consequence is anything that immediately follows as a result of behaviour. In this case the mother ends up getting the child some sweets as she is embarrassed at her behaviour this is something the child has learned through time. In this scenario the mother should have talked calmly to the child before entering the shop and tell him/her that they will get rewarded if they display good behaviour. The child will continue to display bad behaviour if the mother keeps getting sweets for it when he/she throws a tantrum.

-Describe how the principles of classical conditioning can explain why a patient is petrified of having injections.

Classical conditioning is a reflexive or automatic type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus.

In the early twentieth century, Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov did Nobel prize-winning work on digestion. While studying the role of saliva in dogs’ digestive processes, he stumbled upon a phenomenon he labeled “psychic reflexes.” While an accidental discovery, he had the foresight to see the importance of it. Pavlov’s dogs, restrained in an experimental chamber, were presented with meat powder and they had their saliva collected via a surgically implanted tube in their saliva glands. Over time, he noticed that his dogs who begin salivation before the meat powder was even presented, whether it was by the presence of the handler or merely by a clicking noise produced by the device that distributed the meat powder. Proposed learning occurs as a three stage process as a result of associating one stimulus with another stimulus. The three stage process for the above about the dogs and the meat is:

UCS        UCR

Dog food        saliva

UCS + CS        UCR

Dog food + bell        saliva

CS        CR

Bell         saliva

The patient that is petrified of having injections with follow the following formula:

UCS        UCR

Pain         Fear

UCS + CS        UCR

Pain + injection        Fear

CS        CR

Injection        Fear

The above indicates how individuals develop fears about something. The individual is petrified about the stimuli (injections) as humans react to pain. The unconditioned stimulus reacts as an unlearned response as fear of pain comes naturally to us. The unlearned stimulus is paired with a stimulus which is an injection. Most injections cause humans to get scared a bit although some injections don’t bother people as some are not as painful. Then the presentation of the injection to the human causes fear. The human is scared of the needle when they see it and have no idea yet of whether or not it will hurt, there for the response is a learned response, therefore it is an CR.