Question

Janice was in a car accident last week. Just before the accident happened, she heard screeching brakes. Now every time she hears even slightly squeaky brakes, she panics. Explain why she panics, using terms and concepts from classical conditioning.

Answer 1

Causes of Panic

panic refers to fear of something. It generally comes from pressure or tension. It is diagnosed in people who have experience of something dangerous and fearful. Here Janice have seen the car accident in last week and this is a fearful stimulus for Janice.

Classical conditioning is highly associated with adopting a new experience. Even anxiety and panic can be learned by the Classical conditioning. The process of learning in classical conditioning is known as Paired association. Paired association meanes pairing of feard experience with a neutral stimulus.Fearful experience now becomes associated with the neutral stimulus. Now a neutral stimulus can create a fearful situation because its pairing. Now the person can be feared even in a normal situation or a neutral stimulus. Because the person has learned to be feared via classical conditioning. When the learning process has occured, this neutral stimulus turned into the Conditioned stimulus.

In the above example we can see that Janice's panic is also cause of Paired association in Classical conditioning. As she has experience of the accident and she heard screeching breakes. So now these fearful stimulus or experiences are pairing with a neutral stimulus. These pairing presents anxious stimulus like sound of Squeaky Breaks . These sound produces feared situation for Janice and she panics even in a normal situation.Because Janice has learned to feared by classical conditioning.