Learning & Maladaptive Behavior

1. Learning & Maladaptive Behavior Lesson 17

2. Maladaptive Behavior • Detrimental to well-being/survival • How is it acquired? • Normal learning mechanisms • Operant (Instrumental) learning • overt behaviors • Respondent learning • CERs • physiological responses • covert behaviors ~

3. Maladaptive Learning: Respondent • Conditioned Emotional Responses • fear/anxiety • anticipatory pain • Phobias • Depression • Panic Disorder • With agoraphobia • Post-traumatic stress-disorder ~

4. Conditioned Emotional Responses • Acquired Motivation • Motivates maladaptive behaviors • covert behavior: Fear & Anxiety • Pavlovian • Self-medication • Addictive behaviors • Mood modification • Via behavior or substance use • acquisition by operant ~

5. Maladaptive Eating Behaviors • Higher incidence of • depression & anxiety • OCD & substance abuse • women: relationship problems • Maintained via reinforcement • self-medication • Obesity • positive & negative reinforcement • health problems ~

6. Eating Disorders • Anorexia nervosa • little or no eating • Bulimia • binge & purge • Motivation? • Negative body image  anxiety • lack of control • Control eating  RFT ~

7. Substance Abuse & Addiction • Abused/Addictive drugs • Positive reinforcers • Negative reinforcers • Aversive aftereffects • Normal reinforcement mechanisms • Same as natural reinforcers • Strengthens drug-taking behavior • Addiction: compulsive use ~

8. Abusive Relationships • Why do women stay with men who physically abuse them? • Pain as punishment • Honeymoon phase as Pos RFT • Initially • later following abuse • History of punishing behavior • early weak  later severe • habituation ~

9. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder • Obsessions • Persistent, intrusive thoughts • Produce anxiety • Compulsions • Repetitive behaviors • Reduce anxiety • Acquired & maintained by… • Negative reinforcement ~

10. Learned Helplessness • Animal model of depression • No contingency b/n behavior & aversive outcomes • Saversive: B  no effect • Global expectancy develops • ineffectiveness of behavior • Failure to respond even when it may be successful ~

11. Master rat Yoked rat Experimental procedure • Master • response can terminate shock • Yoked • shocked w/ master • no control over shock ~

12. Give all avoidance training • Transfer all to shuttlebox training • Standard escape / avoidance task • Will they learn to escape? • Master? • Yoked? ~

13. Master vs Yoked • Difference in escape learning, but • Both shocked • Same number • Same intensity • Same duration • How do they differ? • Control of shock ~

14. Uncontrollable Aversive Events LearnedHelplessness Conclusions • Yoked rat develops expectation • no response will terminate shock • generalizes to other situations • Global expectancy of ineffectiveness ~

15. Stress-induced Analgesia • Decrease in pain sensitivity • Occurs in rats in uncontrollable circumstances • Use same rats from learned helplessness • Test for analgesia • Tail Flick Test ~

16. Results • Master  no analgesia • stress is controllable • Yoked rat  analgesic • stress is uncontrollable • Less sensitive to pain • May stay in contact with painful stimulus longer • Injury more likely ~

17. Kids & Math Problems • Dweck & Rapucci (1973) • 5th graders given series of math problems • Give easy problems • performance good • Give unsolvable problems • Give easy again • difficulty doing easy problems ~