9/5/2019 How People Pick Up Anxiety Through Classical Conditioning – Reflectd

How People Pick Up Anxiety Through Classical

Conditioning
Posted on May 1, 2013

This post gives an account of the processes that are involved in the learning of anxiety.
More speci cally, it will consider the theory of classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning was originally illustrated by Pavlov in his dog experiments (read

more), and the experiment showed how a speci c stimulus (food) could evoke an
immediate unconditioned response (UR), such as the salivation in dogs.

Then Pavlov illustrated how this response could be conditioned, which implies that the
salivation could become activated without the presence of the speci c stimulus (food).

The conditioning could be evoked by the sound of a metronome, and whenever the dog
was fed, the sound was played. Soon the dog associated the sound with the presence of
food.

Therefore, the sound of a metronome was enough for the dog to produce salivation
because it had associated the sound with the presence of food, and this response is called
a conditioned response (CR).

You might think, what does this have to do with anxiety? Well, in the same way a dog
becomes conditioned, the same way
We use anxiety
cookies to give or
you athe
phobia can become a conditioned
best experience.

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response.
9/5/2019 It can therefore originate without
How People the
Pick Up Anxiety presence
Through of a direct
Classical Conditioning threat (a noxious
– Reflectd

stimulus).

According to the learning paradigm, the anxiety is caused by a learning process. Anxiety
may originate from an episode, where the individual has learned that such an episode is
(life) threatening, and that similar episodes are threatening as well.

For example, being arachnophobic (i.e., the fear of spiders) can be due to an episode
where a given spider has been perceived as a direct threat, but soon after, the threat
becomes conditioned, and then the phobia is provoked by the mere talk of spiders. It is
therefore not the spider itself, but rather the mental representation of the spider that
causes the anxiety.

Theoretically, there are no limits to how many associations an individual can make, and
the anxiety will just get more pronounced with each association made. This is certainly an
irrational response, but it is a way to navigate through possible threats in the
environment. So, anxiety makes one careful, but also too careful.

It even seems that some phobias are innate, or at least readily triggered. This is probably
the case with arachnophobia (see this link). It may simply be an evolutionary advantage to
be afraid of spiders, just like it is to be afraid of predators or heights.

However, if you do not live in a place where deadly or dangerous spiders exist, the fear of
spiders is irrational, and you are then being too careful as the threat is nonexistent. I hope
you get my point.

When a person has learned a conditioned response, it is very dif cult to extinct the
response, and indeed an older study by Eysenck (1968) shows how anxiety maintains for
long period of time without the in uence of a direct threat. When one is afraid of
something, one tries to avoid threatening situations, in which the anxiety is being
provoked.

This may lead to avoidance behaviors, which in fact feeds the anxiety even more. This is
because, if we persistently avoid the situations that provoke the anxieties, then the
anxieties are never confronted and desensitized.

Also, we will never learn that the anxiety is disproportional, and we will therefore remain
in a state of anxiety. The anxiety will add up and overwhelm our nervous system sooner or
later.

Image: Reno

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