AP PSYCHOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Whenever you see a scary movie, you always eat a box of thin mints. Now you find that eating a box of thin mints makes you feel scared. US = scary movie; UR = thin mints; CS = thin mints; CR = scared. Your significant other often yells at you and makes you feel bad.

Detailed explanation-2: -When you develop a phobia, classical condition can often explain it. For example, if you have a panic attack in a certain place-like an elevator-you may begin to associate elevators with panic and begin avoiding or fearing all elevator rides. Experiencing a negative stimulus can affect your response.

Detailed explanation-3: -Fear conditioning is a form of classical conditioning. It is the mechanism we learn to fear people, objects, places, and events that are aversive such as an electric shock. In evolution, this form of associative fear learning plays a critical role in our survival from future threats3.

Detailed explanation-4: -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.

Detailed explanation-5: -For example, whenever you come home wearing a baseball cap, you take your child to the park to play. So, whenever your child sees you come home with a baseball cap, he is excited because he has associated your baseball cap with a trip to the park. This learning by association is classical conditioning.