Chapter 13: Behavioral/Social Learning Approach PDF

326 Chapter 13 / The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach Why do we perform some of the behaviors we learn through observation but not others? The answer lies in our expectations about the consequences. That is, do you believe the action will be rewarded or punished? In the case of shooting another...

326 Chapter 13 / The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach Why do we perform some of the behaviors we learn through observation but not others? The answer lies in our expectations about the consequences. That is, do you believe the action will be rewarded or punished? In the case of shooting another person, most of us expect this behavior will be punished—if not in a legal sense, then through self-punishment in the form of guilt and lowered feelings of worth. But if we have never performed the behavior, where do we get our expectations about consequences? Again, from observing others. Specifically, was your model for the behavior rewarded or punished? A high school boy may watch an older friend ask someone for a date. He pays close attention to how the friend engages the potential date in conversation, what is said, and so on. If the friend’s behavior is rewarded (a date is made), the boy may believe that he, too, will be rewarded if he acts just like his friend. Most likely, he’ll soon get his courage up and ask out someone he’s had his eye on for a while. And if the older friend is turned down? It’s unlikely the boy will imitate the punished behavior. In both cases, the boy paid close enough attention to learn how his friend went about asking for a date. But whether he will perform the behavior depends on what he thinks will happen. Bandura (1965) demonstrated this learning-performance distinction in a classic experiment with important social implications. Nursery school children watched a television program in which an adult model performed four novel aggressive acts on an adult-size plastic Bobo doll: First, the model laid the Bobo doll on its side, sat on it, and punched it in the nose while remarking, “Pow, right in the nose, boom, boom.” The model then raised the doll and pommeled it on the head with a mallet. Each response was accompanied by the verbalization, “Sockeroo … stay down.” Following the mallet aggression, the model kicked the doll about the room, and these responses were interspersed with the comment, “Fly away.” Finally, the model threw rubber balls at the Bobo doll, each strike punctuated with “Bang.” (pp. 590–591) The children saw one of three endings to the film. Some saw a second adult reward the aggressive model with soft drinks, candy, and lots of praise. Others saw the model spanked with a rolled-up magazine and warned not to act aggressively again. A third group was given no information about the consequences of the aggressive behavior. Next, each child was left alone for 10 minutes of free playing time. Among the many toys in the room were a Bobo doll and all the materials needed to perform the aggressive acts they had seen. An experimenter watched through a one-way window to see how many of the four acts of aggression the children would perform spontaneously. Each child was then offered fruit juice and small toys for each of the four aggressive acts he or she could perform for the experimenter. This last step was included to see if the children could perform the behavior—that is, had they learned the responses from watching the model? The results are shown in Figure 13.4. Nearly all the children in all three groups could perform the behaviors when asked. However, whether they chose to perform the behavior when left alone depended on the consequences they expected. Although all the children had learned how to act aggressively, the ones who had seen the model rewarded were significantly more likely to perform the behaviors than those who had seen the model punished. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Application: Conditioning Principles and Self-Efficacy in Psychotherapy 327 Mean Number of Different Imitative Responses Reproduced 4 3 2 1 0 Boys Girls Model Rewarded Boys Girls Model Punished Boys Girls No Consequences Figure 13.4 Mean Number of Aggressive Responses Performed Source: From “Influence of models’ reinforcement contingencies on the acquisition of imitative responses,” by A. Bandura, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1965, 1, 589–595. Application: Conditioning Principles and Self-Efficacy in Psychotherapy O ne of the appeals of traditional behaviorism is its presentation of a simple, rational model of human nature. Looking at the world through a behaviorist’s eyes, everything makes sense. Employees work hard when they are reinforced properly. Children stop fighting when aggressive behavior is punished and working together is reinforced. But what about some of the seemingly irrational behaviors we see in people suffering from psychological disorders? How can basic conditioning principles explain a fear of stairs or a belief that people are out to get you? As we will see next, not only can behaviorists account for these and other abnormal behaviors, but also many therapeutic techniques designed to overcome these problems are based on basic conditioning principles. Concepts from social learning theory and social-­cognitive theory also have been employed by psychotherapists. In particular, ­Bandura’s notion of self-efficacy has been used to help people suffering from a wide variety of problems. Behavioral Explanations of Psychological Disorders John B. Watson was the first to demonstrate how seemingly “abnormal” behaviors are created through normal conditioning procedures. Watson used classical conditioning to create a fear of white rats in an 11-month-old baby known as Little Albert (Watson & Rayner, 1920). As shown in Figure 13.5, Watson began with the S-R association between a loud noise and fear found in most infants. That is, whenever Watson would Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 328 Chapter 13 / The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach Loud Noise (Unconditioned Stimulus) Fear Responses (Unconditioned Response) White Rat (Conditioned Stimulus) Fear Responses (Conditioned Response) Figure 13.5 Diagram of Little Albert’s Classical Conditioning make the loud noise, Albert would cry and show other signs of fear. Next, Watson showed Albert a white rat, each time accompanied by the loud noise. Soon Albert responded to the white rat with fear responses (crying, crawling away) similar to those he had made to the loud noise, even when the noise was not sounded. Watson’s point was that what appeared to be an abnormal fear of white rats in an infant could be explained by the past conditioning of the child. Behaviorists argue that many of our seemingly irrational fears may have been developed in a similar manner. We may not recall when bridges or snakes were ever associated with an existing fear, but these associations could have taken place a long time ago or even without our awareness. However, there is a problem with this explanation. As Pavlov discovered, new associations formed through classical conditioning tend to extinguish once the pairing is removed. Why, then, do phobias not just become extinct on their own without psychological intervention? One answer is that operant conditioning may take over. Imagine a 3-year-old girl who falls off a tall slide. The pain and fear she experiences are paired with the slide, and those feelings re-emerge the next time she approaches the playground. Her anxiety increases as she gets closer and closer to the slide. Quite likely, she’ll decide to turn away and try the slide some other time, thereby reducing the anxiety. What has happened in this situation is that the act of avoiding the slide has been reinforced through negative reinforcement. Running away was followed by a reduction in the aversive stimulus, the feelings of fear and anxiety. If this avoidance behavior is reinforced a few more times, the girl could develop a strong fear of slides. The fear might then be generalized to a fear of all high places, and years later, the woman may seek therapy for this debilitating phobia. Psychologists also use conditioning principles to explain why some people develop fears after a traumatic experience whereas others do not (Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006). Sometimes previous learning can protect us from developing phobias. A boy who has had many pleasant experiences with dogs is not likely to develop a fear of the animal when one untrained dog snarls at and bites him. One study found children who had many uneventful trips to the dentist were less likely than new patients to develop a fear of dentists after one painful visit (Kent, 1997). On the other hand, a learning Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Application: Conditioning Principles and Self-Efficacy in Psychotherapy 329 history with several small fearful experiences can make a person more vulnerable to developing a phobia when a very traumatic experience occurs (Mineka & Zinbarg, 2006). A girl who has been frightened several times by loud and splashing children at the local pool is especially vulnerable to developing a fear of water after a near-­ drowning experience. Behaviorists explain other problem behaviors in terms of reinforcing the wrong behavior. A socially anxious girl may have found the only escape from the criticism and ridicule she received at home was to avoid family contact as much as possible (negative reinforcement), a behavior she then generalized to other people. A man suffering from paranoid delusions may believe he has thwarted a plan to kidnap him by staying in his house all day, thereby rewarding the behavior. Behavior theorists also point out that an absence of appropriate behavior is often the result of too little reinforcement. For example, if the socially anxious woman’s efforts to initiate conversations with others are never rewarded, she’ll probably stop trying. Using Conditioning Principles in Psychotherapy If we accept that problem behavior is sometimes the result of unusual conditioning experiences, then it may be possible to treat the problem by using more appropriate conditioning. Several therapy procedures based on basic conditioning principles have been developed. These procedures differ from more traditional therapies in several respects. The treatment usually lasts for several weeks, as compared to perhaps years. The focus is on changing a few well-defined behaviors rather than changing important aspects of the client’s personality. And therapists using these procedures are often unconcerned with discovering where the problem behavior originated. Their goal is simply to remove it or replace it with a more appropriate set of responses. Classical Conditioning Applications Therapists often use classical conditioning to eliminate or replace S-R associations that cause clients problems. Although these techniques traditionally use physical pairing of objects and reactions, psychologists find that mental images can also be classically conditioned (Dadds, Bovbjerg, Redd, & Cutmore, 1997). Thus, in the safety of a behavior therapist’s office, clients can imagine themselves facing the situations they fear without actually visiting those places. One treatment for phobias pairs images of the feared object with a relaxation response. Through systematic desensitization, the old association between the feared stimulus and the fear response is replaced with a new association between the stimulus and relaxation. Clients and therapists begin the treatment by creating a list of imagined scenes ranging from mildly arousing to highly anxiety provoking. A man afraid of heights might begin his list with a scene of himself standing on a 2-foot-high footstool. The next scene might be walking up a flight of stairs, followed by a scene of him standing on an 8-foot ladder. Highly anxiety-provoking scenes are placed at the end of the hierarchy, such as looking out from the top floor of a skyscraper or flying in a small airplane. After clients complete relaxation training, they imagine the scenes while they practice relaxing. One step at a time, they slowly move through the list until they can imagine the scene without feeling anxious. In theory, the fear response is being Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 330 Chapter 13 / The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach replaced with a new, incompatible response—relaxation. If this therapy works, ­clients who once were mildly anxious when thinking about standing on a 2-foot stool can imagine (and eventually perform) looking out over the city from the top of a tall building without fear. Aversion therapy is another example of classical conditioning used to alter problem behaviors. Here therapists try to rid clients of undesirable behaviors by pairing aversive images with the behavior. For example, for a client trying to quit smoking, the image of a cigarette might be paired with images of becoming nauseated and vomiting. Operant Conditioning Applications Sometimes therapy can be as basic as reinforcing desired behaviors and punishing undesirable ones. However, this is more difficult than it may sound. Behavior therapists begin this type of treatment by identifying the target behavior and defining it in specific operational terms. For example, what would you reinforce or punish when a child’s problem is “acting immature”? A behavior therapist would probably interview parents and teachers to determine which specific immature behaviors they wanted to reduce. Next, the therapist would want to determine a baseline of behavior frequency, because you cannot determine whether you are reducing the frequency of a behavior if you don’t know how often it occurs before the treatment. Through observation or interviews, the therapist might find that a child throws an average of two and a half tantrums per week. Once we know how often the behavior occurs under the current system of rewards and punishments, we change the contingencies. If it’s a desired behavior, the environment is altered so the client is rewarded for it. If it’s undesired, punishment is introduced or reinforcement is reduced. Ideally, appropriate responses are reinforced at the same time undesired behavior is extinguished or punished. In the case of the child throwing tantrums, parents might be told to stop rewarding the action with attention and concern. In addition, punishments might be introduced, such as not allowing the child to watch television for 24 hours after a tantrum. At the same time, the child should be reinforced for handling frustrating situations in an appropriate way. The frequency of the target behavior is monitored throughout the therapy. After a few weeks, the therapist can see whether the treatment is working or whether adjustments need to be made. If the child is down to one tantrum a week, the treatment will probably continue for a few more weeks until the tantrums disappear entirely. If they are still occurring two and a half times a week, a new therapy program may need to be developed. Psychologists can also use operant conditioning when working with groups. A group contingency intervention offers rewards to all members of a group when the entire group meets the behavior goal. For example, to reduce the amount of swearing on the playground, an elementary teacher might reward each member of the class with a treat at the end of each day she hears no swear words during recess. Group contingency interventions have been found to especially effective with school-aged children (Little, Akin-Little, & O’Neill, 2015). Biofeedback is another example of operant conditioning used to treat psychological problems. Biofeedback requires special equipment that provides information about Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Application: Conditioning Principles and Self-Efficacy in Psychotherapy 331 somatic processes. A woman suffering from anxiety might use a machine that tells her when she is tightening and relaxing certain facial and back muscles, a reaction she is otherwise not aware of. After several muscle relaxation sessions with the immediate feedback of the machine, she may learn to reduce tension on her own and thereby overcome her anxiety. In operant conditioning terms, the woman was reinforced for producing the response that lowered her muscle tension, as indicated by the machine. As with other reinforced behaviors, she soon learned to make the relaxation response. Tension headaches are one of the most common targets of biofeedback treatments. To reduce these headaches, psychologists use electromyography monitors to inform clients about muscle constriction that they otherwise might not be aware of. Studies find the procedure is highly effective in reducing the frequency, intensity, and duration of tension headaches (Nestoriuc, Rief, & Martin, 2008). Moreover, the procedure was relatively quick and efficient. Participants averaged fewer than 11 biofeedback sessions, and the improvements were seen in follow-up assessments 15 months later. Other bodily indicators that may be controlled through biofeedback include blood pressure, heart rate, and brain waves. Technological advances in recent years have also made biofeedback more accessible and more affordable (Weir, 2016). Wristbands and cell phone apps can provide simple and immediate feedback about many physiological measures, such as heart rate and respiration, thus eliminating the need for repeated sessions in the therapist’s office connected to an immobile machine. Self-Efficacy Every year millions of Americans seek professional help to stop smoking or lose weight. Although many of these people go several weeks without cigarettes or succeed in dropping a few pounds, only a small percentage permanently end their habit or keep the lost pounds off. What is it about these few successful cases that separate them from the others? The answer may lie in what Bandura calls self-efficacy. People stop smoking and lose weight when they convince themselves they can do it. Many smokers complain that they have tried to quit many times but just can’t. From a social-cognitive analysis, one reason these smokers are unable to kick their habit is precisely because they believe they cannot. According to Bandura (1977b, 1997), people aren’t likely to alter their behavior until they make a clear decision to expend the necessary effort. Bandura draws a distinction between outcome expectations and efficacy expectations. An outcome ­expectation is the extent to which people believe actions will lead to a certain outcome. An efficacy expectation is the extent to which people believe they can perform the actions that will bring about the particular outcome. Simply put, it is the difference between believing that something can happen and believing that you can make it happen. You may hold the outcome expectation that if you spend several hours studying each night and abandon social life on weekends, you will receive good grades this term. However, you may also hold the efficacy expectation that you are incapable of such devoted work and sacrifice. Bandura argues that efficacy expectations are better predictors of behavior than outcome expectations. Therapy clients are unlikely to stop smoking, lose weight, or overcome a fear of flying if they don’t believe they are capable of doing so. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 332 Chapter 13 / The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach Where do efficacy expectations come from, and how can therapists change these expectations in their clients? Bandura identifies four sources. The most important of these is enactive mastery experiences. These are successful attempts to achieve the outcome in the past. Sky divers suddenly struck with fear before a jump may tell themselves that they’ve done this many times before without incident and therefore can do it again. On the other hand, a history of failures can lead to low efficacy expectations. People with a fear of heights who have never been able to climb a ladder without coming back down in a fit of anxiety will probably conclude they can’t perform this behavior. Although not as powerful as actual performances, vicarious experiences also alter efficacy expectations. Seeing other people perform a behavior without adverse effects can lead us to believe that we can do it too. People who are afraid to speak in front of an audience may change their efficacy expectation from “I can’t do that” to “maybe I can” after seeing other members of a public speaking class give their speeches without disastrous results. When you tell yourself something like “If she can do it, so can I,” you are changing your efficacy expectation through vicarious experience. A less effective way to alter efficacy expectations is through verbal persuasion. ­Telling someone who is reluctant to stand up to the boss “you can do it” might convince the person to assert his or her rights. However, this expectation will be easily crushed if the actual performance isn’t met with the expected result. Physiological and affective states can also be a source of efficacy expectations. A woman who has difficulty talking with men may find her heart beats rapidly and her palms perspire as she picks up the phone to call a male acquaintance. If she interprets these physiological responses as signs of anxiety, she may decide she is too nervous to go through with it. However, if she notices how calm she is just before dialing, she may decide she is more courageous than she realized. Successful treatment programs often require changing a client’s efficacy expectation through one or more of these means. In one study, therapists helped snake-­ phobic people overcome their fear of the reptiles by taking them through the process of touching and picking up snakes (enactive mastery experience) and/or watching someone else go through this procedure (vicarious experience; Bandura, Adams, & Beyer, 1977). But if successful experiences are the most effective method for altering a client’s efficacy expectations, this creates a bit of a problem. How can a therapist help a client overcome a fear of heights if the client is afraid to leave the first floor of a building? One answer is a procedure known as guided mastery (Bandura, 1997). Using this procedure, the therapist arranges the situation so that the client is almost guaranteed a successful experience. The treatment is broken down into small steps that can be accomplished with only a slight increase in the client’s effort. A client with a fear of driving might begin by driving a short distance on a secluded street (Bandura, 1997). This step is followed with gradually longer drives on busier streets. With each ­successful experience, the client strengthens the belief that he or she is capable of driving in traffic. The other side of this process is that failure to instill a sense of efficacy in a client might very well doom therapeutic efforts. People battling alcohol and drug abuse typically do not succeed in treatment programs when they doubt their ability to overcome Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. Assessment: Behavior Observation Methods 333 the problem (Ilgen, McKellar, & Tiet, 2005). Similarly, investigators find ex-smokers who are not confident they can stop smoking are the most likely to fall back into their habit, sometimes within a few weeks after quitting (Gwaltney, Shiffman, Balabanis, & Paty, 2005; Van Zundert, Ferguson, Shiffman, & Engels, 2010). Finally, the power of self-efficacy goes far beyond eliminating fears and bad ­habits. Self-efficacy beliefs have been found to play a role in overcoming a wide variety of psychological problems, including childhood depression (Bandura, Pastorelli, Babaranelli, & Caprara, 1999), posttraumatic stress disorder (Solomon, Weisenberg, Schwarzwald, & Mikulincer, 1988), test anxiety (Smith, 1989), ­phobias ­( Williams, 1995), drunk driving (Wilson, Sheeham, Palk, & Watson, 2016), and excessive bereavement (Bauer & Bonanno, 2001). Efficacy expectations also affect job performance (Stajkovic & Luthans, 1998), academic achievement (Richardson, Abraham, & Bond, 2012), exercise program persistence (Warner et al., 2014), weight loss (Nezami et al., 2016), and romantic relationships (Lent & Lopez, 2002). Heart attack patients who believe they can effectively participate in their rehabilitation have better cardiovascular health and lower mortality rates than those with low self-efficacy expectations about their health care (Burns & Evon, 2007; Sarkar, Ali, & Whooley, 2009). In short, believing that we are capable of making changes and moving forward is an important component for dealing with many of the challenges and problems life tosses our way. Assessment: Behavior Observation Methods L et’s begin this section by thinking about one of your bad habits. Unless you are quite different from the rest of us, you probably chew your nails, eat junk food, lose your temper, use harsh language, smoke, talk too much, or engage in some other behavior you probably would like to change. Now imagine that you seek out a behavior therapist for help with this problem. The therapist asks you a simple question: How often do you perform the behavior? If you have been keeping track, you may be able to say exactly how many times you lost your temper or how often you chew your nails during the past month. But most likely your answer will be far from precise. Behavior therapists can’t tell if a treatment program is effective unless they know how often the behavior occurs before treatment. Yet too often clients say they perform the unwanted behavior “every once in a while,” “not too often,” or “all the time.” Unlike those who practice other approaches to psychotherapy, behavior therapists typically do not spend much time trying to discover the initial cause of a client’s problem. Instead, they focus on treating observable behaviors. Other therapists may see the behavior as a sign of some underlying conflict, but for behavior therapists, the behavior is the problem. Therefore, objective and reliable assessment of behavior is critical. Behavior therapists use assessment procedures for a variety of purposes. Obviously, they want to determine how often a problem behavior occurs. But they may also want to know about the events surrounding the behavior. Does the client eat unhealthy foods when alone or with other people? Do the tantrums occur at a certain time of day or after a certain kind of experience, such as a scolding? These data can be very helpful in designing treatment programs. Copyright 2019 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.