the criticism and ridicule she received at home was to avoid family contact as
much as possible (negative reinforcement), a behavior she then generalized toother people. A man suffering from paranoid delusions may believe he has
thwarted a plan to kidnap him by staying in his house all day, thereby re-
warding the behavior. Behavior theorists also explain a lack of appropriate
behaviors as the result of too little reinforcement. For example, if the socially
anxious woman ’s efforts to initiate conversations with others are never re-
warded, she ’ll probably stop trying.
Behavior Modification
If we accept that problem behavior is the result of unusual conditioning
experiences, then another principle of behaviorism should follow: Problem
behaviors can be changed through appropriate conditioning experiences.
Several therapy procedures, often grouped under the label behavior modifica-
tion, have been developed from behaviorist theory and research. These proce-
dures differ from more traditional therapies in several respects. The treatmentusually lasts for several weeks, as compared to perhaps years. The focus is onchanging a few well-defined behaviors rather than changing the entire person-
ality of the client. And behavior therapists are often unconcerned with discov-
ering where the problem behavior originated. Their goal is simply to removeit or replace it with a more appropriate set of responses. These features have
made behavior modification techniques popular among therapists from a va-
riety of theoretical orientations.
Classical Conditioning Applications
Pairing one stimulus with another is a powerful tool for creating newstimulus-response associations. Therapists often use classical conditioning to
eliminate or replace stimulus-response associations that cause clients pro-
blems. Although these techniques traditionally use physical pairing of objects
and reactions, psychologists also find that mental images can be classically
conditioned (Dadds, Bovbjerg, Redd, & Cutmore, 1997). Thus, in the safety
of a behavior therapist ’s office, clients can imagine themselves facing the si-
tuations they fear without actually visiting those places.
One treatment for phobias pairs images of the feared object with a relaxa-
tion response. Through systematic desensitization the old association between
the feared stimulus and the fear response is replaced with a new association be-tween the stimulus and relaxation. Clients and therapists begin the treatmentby creating a list of imagined scenes ranging from mildly arousing to highly
anxiety provoking. A man afraid of heights might begin his list with a scene of
himself standing on a 2-foot-high footstool. The next scene might be walking
up a flight of stairs, followed by a scene of him standing on an 8-foot ladder.
Last on the hierarchy come the highly anxiety-provoking scenes, such as look-
ing out from the top floor of a skyscraper or flying in a small airplane.
After clients complete relaxation training, they imagine the scenes while
they practice relaxing. One step at a time, they slowly move through the listuntil they can imagine the scene without feeling anxious. In theory, the fear
response is being replaced with a new, incompatible response —relaxation.360 CHAPTER 13 The Behavioral/Social Learning Approach