Examining the transfer of fear and avoidance response functionsthrough real-world verbal relations.
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Language is conceived in modern behaviour analysis as a large network of\ncontextually controlled interconnecting stimulus relations. One process in particular,\nthe derived transfer of response functions, is a central feature of these verbal\nnetworks. According to this process, the functions of conditioned stimuli (e.g.,\nwords) can emerge spontaneously for other stimuli in the language network (e.g.,\nother words). Given this, it is not difficult to see how fear and avoidance can quickly\nbecome a clinical issue for verbally able humans once fear and avoidance have been\nestablished through direct conditioning experiences in the real world. Researchers\nwithin the associative conditioning field have recently become excited by the\npossibility that conditioned fear can generalise through non-formal stimulus\nrelations. However, their interest in this is recent, their paradigm differs significantly\nfrom the behaviour-analytic one, and no studies from that field have directly tested\nthe idea that natural language networks can produce and maintain spontaneous\nemergence of fear for unconditioned stimuli (i.e., along a semantic or symbolic\nstimulus continuum). This thesis represented an attempt to produce and control the\ntransfer of fear and avoidance using existing words as conditioned and novel probe\nstimuli. In doing so, it attempted to build bridges between the methodologies and\nnomenclature of associative learning theory and behaviour analysis.\nExperiment1 used an operant conditioning procedure to establish an\navoidance response for a real word, and then probed for a derived transfer of\navoidance to a categorically related word. Avoidance was not observed to transfer\nthrough these verbal relations. Experiment 2 employed a similar paradigm, but with\nan enhanced US and using concurrent physiological measures of fear. It also\nemployed synonyms as conditioned and probe stimuli. Significant levels of transfer\nof fear, avoidance and US expectancies were observed. Correlations between\nphysiological and behavioural measures produced ambiguous but conceptually\ninteresting outcomes. These are discussed in terms of the nature of the relationship\n(i.e., causal of otherwise) between fear, overt avoidance and stimulus function\nappraisals recorded as US expectancy ratings. The implications of these findings for\nour understanding of the interface between language and anxiety are considered.
Author: Seán Boyle
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W82901665