Abnormal Psychology

52 CHAPTER 2

Receiving frequent punishments or negative criticisms is associated with

depression in some people: Over time, some individuals who experience such aver-

sive events eventually give up trying to avoid or escape them and become depressed.

Martin Seligman and his colleagues suggested that this giving up is learned through

operant conditioning (Miller & Seligman, 1973, 1975). The process appears analo-

gous to what happens to animals in similar circumstances. Consider a classic study

by Overmier and Seligman (1967): When caged dogs were electrically shocked, at

fi rst they would respond to the shocks, trying to escape in order to avoid them. But

when they could not escape the continued shocks, they eventually stopped responding

and simply endured, huddling on the fl oor. Even after they were put in a new cage in

which they could easily avoid the shocks, they remained on the fl oor. This phenom-

enon is called learned helplessness: In an aversive situation where it seems that no

action can be effective, the animal stops trying to escape (Mikulincer, 1994). Learned

helplessness may also occur in humans, and is considered to underlie certain types

of depression. For example, sometimes people are emotionally abused—continually

criticized, humiliated, and belittled—and no matter how hard they try to be “better”

(and so prevent the abuse), the emotional abuse continues. When people in such a sit-

uation give up trying, they may become depressed and become vulnerable to a variety

of stress-related problems.

FEEDBACK LOOPS IN ACTION: Classical Conditioning and Operant

Conditioning Revisited

Classical conditioning and operant conditioning involve neurological factors: the

underlying brain mechanisms that pair stimuli in the case of classical conditioning,

and the underlying brain mechanisms for reward and punishment in the case of

operant conditioning. And based on temperament (an-

other neurological factor, which we’ll discuss shortly),

people who are more emotionally reactive are more

likely to develop conditioned emotional responses than

are others (Bienvenu et al., 2001). Social factors can also

contribute to maladaptive learning: The presence of oth-

ers or emotional responses from others can serve as rein-

forcement or punishment (Kringelbach, Aranjo, & Rolls,

2001), leading people to behave in maladaptive ways.

For example, if a parent punishes a child in some way

(even through facial expressions) for playing with an-

other child, that punished child may grow up to feel that

it is somehow “wrong” to enjoy others’ company and

come to avoid others when possible. Similarly, a specifi c

individual, such as a punitive relative, can become a con-

ditioned stimulus, eliciting fear.

Let’s suppose that a student gave a presentation that

didn’t go well and some classmates snickered during one

part (social factor). Let’s also suppose that this student had an inherited vulnerabil-

ity (a neurological factor; Biederman et al., 2001; Kagan, 1989) that increased his

or her risk of developing a conditioned emotional response—in this case, to making

presentations (Mineka & Zinbarg, 1995). And let’s further suppose that the student

developed negative, irrational thoughts about public speaking (psychological factor;

Abbott & Rapee, 2004; Antony & Barlow, 2002). The neurological factors and social

factors may increase the likelihood that the student will develop a social phobia—an

intense fear of public humiliation or embarrassment, accompanied by an avoidance of

social situations likely to elicit this fear.

Observational Learning

Not all learning involves directly experiencing the associations that underlie classi-

cal and operant conditioning. Observational learning (also referred to as modeling)

People who are uncomfortable in particular social

situations may leave such situations as early as

possible; this early departure is negatively rein-

forced because, once they leave, they no longer

feel uncomfortable. Such negative reinforcement

of social anxiety can contribute to a psychologi-

cal disorder called social phobia—unreasonable

anxiety or fear in social situations (American

Psychiatric Association, 2000).

Learned helplessness

The state of “giving up” that arises when an

animal is in an aversive situation where it

seems that no action can be effective.

Observational learning

The process of learning through watching

what happens to others; also referred to as

modeling.

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