Question

13. Provide an example of a competing contingency from your own personal experience (behavior).

Answer:

14. Jonah has listened to his new CD over and over since he bought it. His favorite song is the fourth song on the album. Now, when he hears the third song, he becomes excited in anticipation of hearing his upcoming favorite song. Is this an example of classical or operant conditioning? Explain

Answer:

15. Carlita used to get nervous whenever she had to travel by airplane. Recently, her friend taught Carlita some deep breathing techniques to help her relax. Carlita tried them out and felt much better when she next flew. Now, she always does deep breathing exercises before she flies. Is this an example of classical or operant conditioning? Explain

Answer:

16. Describe how positive and negative reinforcement probably plays a role in drug-taking behavior/addiction

Answer 1

13. Competing contengencies are a part of learning theories. It refers to the persons learning about the likelihood that a response will occur by doing something else. This also includes the reinforcement and punishment as either of them will make one realise that by doing a behavior one will get a reward or a punishment.

14. This is an example of classical conditioning as jonah associates the third song to the fourth song and gets excited to it. Comparing it with the dog experiment by pavlov we can see that the bell induced salivation as it got associated to the arrival of food after some time. Here also the third song acts like the bell and is the conditioned stimulus to the excitement like salivation being the conditioned respinse for the fourth song which acts like the food

15. This is an example if operant kearning as carita was initially nervous of travelling in the airolane but when she followed the advice of relaxation technique i.e. deep breathing, she got good results out of it which is that she relaxed and was able to travel comfortably. This can be called as a reinforcement for her and as per operant conditioning reinforcement strangthens an act. As a result everytime she travels by air she practices these techniques now

16. Positive reinforcenent strengthens a behavior and the person achieving it would repeat the behavior again and again but negative reinforcement makes a person avoid a particular stimulus as he associates it with something bad. In case of drug taking or addiction the addict is rewarded when he avoids or ignores taking the drug which will make hime motivated to let go off the habit now as he is continously getting rewards out of it. This has a major issue that as soon as the reward is stopped the provability of returning back to the drug intake habit is high. In the same case if we chose negative reinforcement it would include aversive strategy. We might induce some shock to the person whenever he takes drug. He might associate it with the shock after sometime and would quit taking drugs ultimately. The probability of returning back to the same behavior is comparitively low in this case as when he quits it he wont be taking it and the negative reinforcement only needs to be given if he takes it again for trying to find out the actual cause of the shick. Hence negative and positive both reinforcements will help reduce drug intake but negative reinforcement will be more efficient