Boyle, Sean (2013) Examining the transfer of fear and avoidance response functions through real-world verbal relations. Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
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Abstract
Language is conceived in modern behaviour analysis as a large network of
contextually controlled interconnecting stimulus relations. One process in particular,
the derived transfer of response functions, is a central feature of these verbal
networks. According to this process, the functions of conditioned stimuli (e.g.,
words) can emerge spontaneously for other stimuli in the language network (e.g.,
other words). Given this, it is not difficult to see how fear and avoidance can quickly
become a clinical issue for verbally able humans once fear and avoidance have been
established through direct conditioning experiences in the real world. Researchers
within the associative conditioning field have recently become excited by the
possibility that conditioned fear can generalise through non-formal stimulus
relations. However, their interest in this is recent, their paradigm differs significantly
from the behaviour-analytic one, and no studies from that field have directly tested
the idea that natural language networks can produce and maintain spontaneous
emergence of fear for unconditioned stimuli (i.e., along a semantic or symbolic
stimulus continuum). This thesis represented an attempt to produce and control the
transfer of fear and avoidance using existing words as conditioned and novel probe
stimuli. In doing so, it attempted to build bridges between the methodologies and
nomenclature of associative learning theory and behaviour analysis.
Experiment1 used an operant conditioning procedure to establish an
avoidance response for a real word, and then probed for a derived transfer of
avoidance to a categorically related word. Avoidance was not observed to transfer
through these verbal relations. Experiment 2 employed a similar paradigm, but with
an enhanced US and using concurrent physiological measures of fear. It also
employed synonyms as conditioned and probe stimuli. Significant levels of transfer
of fear, avoidance and US expectancies were observed. Correlations between
physiological and behavioural measures produced ambiguous but conceptually
interesting outcomes. These are discussed in terms of the nature of the relationship
(i.e., causal of otherwise) between fear, overt avoidance and stimulus function
appraisals recorded as US expectancy ratings. The implications of these findings for
our understanding of the interface between language and anxiety are considered.
Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
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Keywords: | fear; avoidance response functions; real-world verbal relations; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology |
Item ID: | 5386 |
Depositing User: | IR eTheses |
Date Deposited: | 09 Sep 2014 16:05 |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/5386 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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