Which model of abnormality

The behavior caused by the conditioned stimulus is called the conditioned response CR. Figure 2. Before conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus food produces an unconditioned response salivation , and a neutral stimulus bell does not produce a response. During conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus food is presented repeatedly just after the presentation of the neutral stimulus bell.

After conditioning, the neutral stimulus alone produces a conditioned response salivation , thus becoming a conditioned stimulus. Watson used the principles of classical conditioning in the study of human emotion. The second figure central to classical conditioning was John B. Watson, often regarded as the founder of behaviorism.

According to Watson, human behavior, just like animal behavior, is primarily the result of conditioned responses. He first tested this together with his graduate student Rosalie Rayner in a series of studies with a baby called Little Albert. Although this study would be considered unethical today in how it was carried out, Watson and Rayner demonstrated how fears can be conditioned in humans. In , Watson was the chair of the psychology department at Johns Hopkins University.

Watson offered her a dollar to allow her son to be the subject of his experiments in classical conditioning. Initially, he was presented with various neutral stimuli, including a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, masks, cotton wool, and a white rat.

He was not afraid of any of these things. Then Watson, with the help of Rayner, conditioned Little Albert to associate these stimuli with an emotion: fear. Figure 3. Through stimulus generalization, Little Albert came to fear furry things, including Watson in a Santa Claus mask.

For example, Watson handed Little Albert the white rat, and Little Albert enjoyed playing with it neutral stimulus. Little Albert was frightened by the sound—demonstrating a reflexive fear of sudden loud noises—and began to cry.

Watson repeatedly paired the loud sound with the white rat. Soon Little Albert became frightened by the white rat alone. Write out your answers to practice.

Days later, Little Albert demonstrated stimulus generalization —he became afraid of other furry things: a rabbit, a furry coat, and even a Santa Claus mask Figure 3. Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert, thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses.

However, there is no evidence that Little Albert experienced phobias in later years. Classical conditioning can occur in many regular contexts in life from food aversion getting sick after eating something and then feeling nauseated if you see the same food later on , emotional reactions to people or places, to reactions to chemotherapy experiencing nausea when seeing a doctor or nurse involved in the treatment even if outside of the hospital or clinic.

It also can play a significant role in some forms of mental illnesses. Here, rather than a physical response like dogs drooling , the conditioned stimulus CS triggers an emotional reaction. Simple examples may include a child who sees a dog previously a neutral stimulus and then gets bitten, increasing the chance of developing a phobia towards dogs now a CS or a student, who when younger, gave a presentation in class and was laughed at, contributing to social phobia. Remember that the biopsychosocial model emphasizes multiple interactions in the development of mental illnesses, but these types of learning experiences certainly are relevant and contribute to mental illness.

Classical conditioning can also play a role in drug or alcohol addictions. When a drug is consumed, it can become paired with previously neutral cues that are present at the same time e. In this regard, if someone associates a particular smell with the high from the drug, whenever that person smells the same odor later, it may cue behavioral or emotional responses that encourage continued use.

But drug cues have an even more interesting property: they can elicit physical or physiological responses that represent the body attempting to compensate for the upcoming effect of the drug see Siegel, This conditioned compensatory response has many implications. For instance, a drug user will be most tolerant to the drug in the presence of cues that have been linked to it because such cues generate compensatory responses and so the user increases the dose they are taking to get the same high.

Conditioned compensatory responses which include heightened pain sensitivity and decreased body temperature, among others might also cause discomfort, thus motivating the drug user to continue usage of the drug to reduce them. This is one of several ways classical conditioning might be a factor in drug addiction and dependence.

The second major area of the behavioral model relevant to mental disorders is operant conditioning. In operant conditioning , organisms learn to associate a behavior with its consequence Table 1. A pleasant consequence makes that behavior more likely to be repeated in the future.

For example, Spirit, a dolphin at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, does a flip in the air when her trainer blows a whistle. These yearnings increase during adolescence and adulthood, until the person finally expresses them, often in a guilt-inducing sexual act. Then, normal forms of repression are ineffective in blocking out this guilt, so the person blocks the acts and related thoughts entirely from consciousness by developing a new identity for the dissociated bad part of self.

The psychoanalytic model views all human behavior as a product of mental or psychological causes, though the cause may not be obvious to an outside observer or even to the person performing the behavior. Psychoanalytic influence on the modern perspective of abnormality has been enormous. Freudian concepts , such as Freudian slips and unconscious motivation, are so well known that they are now part of ordinary language and culture. However, the psychoanalytic model has been criticized because it is not verifiable, because it gives complex explanations when simple and straightforward ones are sufficient, because it cannot be proven wrong lacks disconfirmability , and because it was based mainly on a relatively small number of upper-middle-class European patients and on Freud himself.

A behavioral model, or social-learning model, stemming from American psychologists such as John B. Watson and B. Skinner , emphasizes the role of the environment in developing abnormal behavior. According to this view, people acquire abnormal behavior in the same ways they acquire normal behavior, by learning from rewards and punishments they either experience directly or observe happening to someone else.

Their perceptions, expectations, values, and role models further influence what they learn. In this view, a person with abnormal behavior has a different reinforcement history from that of others. The behavioral model of abnormality stresses classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and modeling.

In classical conditioning, a child might hear a very loud sound immediately after entering the elevator. Thereafter, this child might develop a phobia of elevators and other enclosed spaces.

In operant conditioning, a mother might give the child a cookie to keep him quiet. Soon, the child will notice that when he is noisy and bothersome, his mother gives him cookies and will develop a pattern of temper tantrums and other conduct disorders.

In modeling, the person might notice that her mother is very afraid of spiders. Soon, she might develop a phobia of spiders and other small creatures. The behavioral model advocates a careful investigation of the environmental conditions in which people display abnormal behavior.

Behaviorists pay special attention to situational stimuli, or triggers, that elicit the abnormal behavior and to the typical consequences that follow the abnormal behavior.

Behaviorists search for factors that reinforce or encourage the repetition of abnormal behaviors. The behavioral model helped people realize how fears become associated with specific situations and the role that reinforcement plays in the origin and maintenance of inappropriate behaviors. However, this model ignores the evidence of genetic and biological factors playing a role in some disorders. Further, many people find it difficult to accept the view of human behavior as simply a set of responses to environmental stimuli.

They argue that human beings have free will and the ability to choose their situation as well as how they will react. A humanistic model, stemming from American psychologist Carl Rogers and others, emphasizes that mental disorders arise when people are blocked in their efforts to grow and achieve self-actualization. According to this view, the self-concept is all-important and people have personal responsibility for their actions and the power to plan and choose their behaviors and feelings.

The humanistic model stresses that humans are basically good and have tremendous potential for personal growth. Left to their own devices, people will strive for self-actualization. A common example is Lithium; side effects include loss of coordination, hallucinations, seizures, and frequent urination. The use of these drugs has been generally beneficial to patients.

Most report that their symptoms decline, leading them to feel better and improve their functioning. Also, long-term hospitalizations are less likely to occur as a result, though the medications do not benefit the individual in terms of improved living skills. Electroconvulsive therapy.

Annually, approximately , undergo ECT to treat conditions such as severe depression, acute mania, suicidality, and some forms of schizophrenia. Its popularity has declined since the s and s.

Another option to treat mental disorders is to perform brain surgeries. In the past, we have conducted trephination and lobotomies, neither of which are used today. However, critics cite obvious ethical issues with conducting such surgeries as well as scientific issues.

For more on psychosurgery, check out this article from Psychology Today:. The biological model is generally well respected today but suffers a few key issues. First, consider the list of side effects given for psychotropic medications.

You might make the case that some of the side effects are worse than the condition they are treating. Second, the viewpoint that all human behavior is explainable in biological terms, and therefore when issues arise, they can be treated using biological methods, overlooks factors that are not fundamentally biological.

More on that over the next two sections. In , the book, Studies on Hysteria , was published by Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud , and marked the birth of psychoanalysis, though Freud did not use this actual term until a year later. The book published several case studies, including that of Anna O. Bertha, known in published case studies as Anna O. Her symptoms appeared as she cared for her dying father, and her mother called on Breuer to diagnosis her condition note that Freud never actually treated her.

Hypnosis was used at first and relieved her symptoms, as it had done for many patients See Module 1. She relapsed and was admitted to Bellevue Sanatorium on July 1, eventually being released in October of the same year. With time, Anna O. Bertha Anna O. In , Bertha was diagnosed with a tumor, and in , she was summoned by the Gestapo to explain anti-Hitler statements she had allegedly made.

She died shortly after this interrogation on May 28, Freud considered the talking cure of Anna O. The structure of personality. Freud believed that consciousness had three levels — 1 consciousness which was the seat of our awareness, 2 preconscious that included all of our sensations, thoughts, memories, and feelings, and 3 the unconscious , which was not available to us.

The contents of the unconscious could move from the unconscious to preconscious, but to do so, it had to pass a Gate Keeper. Content that was turned away was said to be repressed. According to Freud, our personality has three parts — the id, superego, and ego, and from these our behavior arises. First, the id is the impulsive part that expresses our sexual and aggressive instincts. It is present at birth, completely unconscious, and operates on the pleasure principle , resulting in selfishly seeking immediate gratification of our needs no matter what the cost.

The second part of personality emerges after birth with early formative experiences and is called the ego. The ego attempts to mediate the desires of the id against the demands of reality, and eventually, the moral limitations or guidelines of the superego.

It operates on the reality principle , or an awareness of the need to adjust behavior, to meet the demands of our environment. Still, we violate these values at times and experience feelings of guilt. The superego is partly conscious but mostly unconscious, and part of it becomes our conscience. The three parts of personality generally work together well and compromise, leading to a healthy personality, but if the conflict is not resolved, intrapsychic conflicts can arise and lead to mental disorders.

Personality develops over five distinct stages in which the libido focuses on different parts of the body. First, libido is the psychic energy that drives a person to pleasurable thoughts and behaviors. Our life instincts, or Eros , are manifested through it and are the creative forces that sustain life. They include hunger, thirst, self-preservation, and sex. In contrast, Thanatos , our death instinct, is either directed inward as in the case of suicide and masochism or outward via hatred and aggression.

Both types of instincts are sources of stimulation in the body and create a state of tension that is unpleasant, thereby motivating us to reduce them. Consider hunger, and the associated rumbling of our stomach, fatigue, lack of energy, etc.

If we are angry at someone, we may engage in physical or relational aggression to alleviate this stimulation. The development of personality. Please note that a person may become fixated at any stage, meaning they become stuck, thereby affecting later development and possibly leading to abnormal functioning, or psychopathology.

Dealing with anxiety. The ego has a challenging job to fulfill, balancing both the will of the id and the superego, and the overwhelming anxiety and panic this creates. Ego-defense mechanisms are in place to protect us from this pain but are considered maladaptive if they are misused and become our primary way of dealing with stress.

They protect us from anxiety and operate unconsciously by distorting reality. Defense mechanisms include the following:. Psychodynamic techniques. Freud used three primary assessment techniques—free association, transference, and dream analysis—as part of psychoanalysis , or psychoanalytic therapy, to understand the personalities of his patients and expose repressed material. First, free association involves the patient describing whatever comes to mind during the session. Freud said this resistance revealed where issues persisted.

They may be positive and include friendly, affectionate feelings, or negative, and include hostile and angry feelings. The goal of therapy is to wean patients from their childlike dependency on the therapist. In terms of the latter, some symbols are linked to the person specifically, while others are common to all people. Evaluating psychodynamic theory. First, Freud made most of his observations in an unsystematic, uncontrolled way, and he relied on the case study method.

Second, the participants in his studies were not representative of the broader population. Third, he relied solely on the reports of his patients and sought no observer reports. Fourth, it is difficult to empirically study psychodynamic principles since most operate unconsciously.

This begs the question of how we can really know that they exist. Still, Sigmund Freud developed useful therapeutic tools for clinicians and raised awareness about the role the unconscious plays in both normal and abnormal behavior. What is learning? The behavioral model concerns the cognitive process of learning , which is any relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience and practice. Learning has two main forms — associative learning and observational learning.

First, associative learning is the linking together of information sensed from our environment. Conditioning , or a type of associative learning, occurs when two separate events become connected. There are two forms: classical conditioning, or linking together two types of stimuli, and operant conditioning, or linking together a response with its consequence.

Second, observational learning occurs when we learn by observing the world around us. We should also note the existence of non-associative learning or when there is no linking of information or observing the actions of others around you.

Behaviorism is the school of thought associated with learning that began in with the publication of John B. Watson believed that the subject matter of psychology was to be observable behavior, and to that end, psychology should focus on the prediction and control of behavior. Behaviorism was dominant from to before being absorbed into mainstream psychology.

Respondent conditioning. You have likely heard about Pavlov and his dogs, but what you may not know is that this was a discovery made accidentally.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov , , , a Russian physiologist, was interested in studying digestive processes in dogs in response to being fed meat powder. What he discovered was the dogs would salivate even before the meat powder was presented. They would salivate at the sound of a bell, footsteps in the hall, a tuning fork, or the presence of a lab assistant.

Pavlov realized some stimuli automatically elicited responses such as salivating to meat powder and other stimuli had to be paired with these automatic associations for the animal or person to respond to it such as salivating to a bell. Armed with this stunning revelation, Pavlov spent the rest of his career investigating the learning phenomenon.

The important thing to understand is that not all behaviors occur due to reinforcement and punishment as operant conditioning says. In the case of respondent conditioning, stimuli exert complete and automatic control over some behaviors. We see this in the case of reflexes. When a doctor strikes your knee with that little hammer, your leg extends out automatically.

And if a nipple is placed in their mouth, they will also automatically suck via the sucking reflex. Humans have several of these reflexes, though not as many as other animals due to our more complicated nervous system.

Respondent conditioning also called classical or Pavlovian conditioning occurs when we link a previously neutral stimulus with a stimulus that is unlearned or inborn, called an unconditioned stimulus. In respondent conditioning, learning happens in three phases: preconditioning, conditioning, and postconditioning. Notice that preconditioning has both an A and a B panel.

All this stage of learning signifies is that some learning is already present. There is no need to learn it again, as in the case of primary reinforcers and punishers in operant conditioning. In Panel A, food makes a dog salivate. This response does not need to be learned and shows the relationship between an unconditioned stimulus UCS yielding an unconditioned response UCR.

Unconditioned means unlearned. In Panel B, we see that a neutral stimulus NS produces no response. Dogs do not enter the world knowing to respond to the ringing of a bell which it hears. Conditioning is when learning occurs. By pairing a neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus bell and food, respectively , the dog will learn that the bell ringing NS signals food coming UCS and salivate UCR.

The pairing must occur more than once so that needless pairings are not learned such as someone farting right before your food comes out and now you salivate whenever someone farts …at least for a while. Eventually the fact that no food comes will extinguish this reaction but still, it will be weird for a bit.

Postconditioning, or after learning has occurred, establishes a new and not naturally occurring relationship of a conditioned stimulus CS; previously the NS and conditioned response CR; the same response. So the dog now reliably salivates at the sound of the bell because he expects that food will follow, and it does. Watson and Rayner conducted one of the most famous studies in psychology.

Panel A of Figure 2. After several conditioning trials, the child responded with fear to the mere presence of the white rat Panel C. As fears can be learned, so too they can be unlearned. Considered the follow-up to Watson and Rayner , Jones ; Figure 2.

Simply, she placed the child in one end of a room and then brought in the rabbit. The rabbit was far enough away so as not to cause distress. Then, Jones gave the child some pleasant food i. The procedure in Panel C continued with the rabbit being brought a bit closer each time until, eventually, the child did not respond with distress to the rabbit Panel D.

This process is called counterconditioning , or the reversal of previous learning. Another respondent conditioning way to unlearn a fear is called flooding or exposing the person to the maximum level of stimulus and as nothing aversive occurs, the link between CS and UCS producing the CR of fear should break, leaving the person unafraid. That is the idea, at least. So, if you were afraid of clowns, you would be thrown into a room full of clowns.

Operant conditioning. Likewise, if our action leads to dissatisfaction, then we will not repeat the same behavior in the future. He developed the law of effect thanks to his work with a puzzle box. Cats were food deprived the night before the experimental procedure was to occur. The next morning, researchers placed a hungry cat in the puzzle box and set a small amount of food outside the box, just close enough to be smelled. The cat could escape the box and reach the food by manipulating a series of levers.

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