Extinction in Psychology

Introduction

In psychology, extinction implies the gradual weakening of conditioned responses that usually results in the decreasing or disappearing of a particular behavior. In other words, there is something that can cause an individual or an animal to stop engaging in a conditioned behavior (Puskar, 2021). In this case, extinction is what could be the cause of these behaviors to stop. Researchers believe that extinction is a type of unlearning. This means that you stop reacting to behavior even when it doesn’t bring the same results. It is essential to note that extinction is caused and occurs during classical conditioning and operant conditioning (Bouton, Trask & Carranza-Jasso, 2016). With classical conditioning, a previously conditioned response eventually stops if a conditioned stimulus is presented solely without the presence of an unconditioned stimulus. For instance, a dog is conditioned to salivate on hearing the sound of a bell. If the bell repeatedly rings without food presentation, then the saliva response will eventually cease. On the other hand, extinction in operant conditioning manifests when a particular response is not reinforced after a discriminative stimulus.

However, there exists a relationship between extinction and reinforcement. In the research concerning operant conditioning, Skinner found that behavior reinforcement influences how resistant the behavior is to extinction. And due to this, he discovered that reinforcing a behavior every time it occurs helps minimize extinction. The presence of reinforcement given after a certain number of responses have manifested or after a certain amount of time has ended leads to a more assertive behavior that is more resistant to extinction (Thomas, 2021). The absence of reinforcement means that the behavior is fragile and that it is subject to extinction. However, there are many real-world scenarios in which behaviors can be placed on extinction. Also, extinction is used to eliminate bad habits, children’s behaviors, and undesirable physical behaviors, among others. This would be relatively easier when interacting with a psychologist professional.

Examples

First, a conditioned taste aversions behaviors are affected by extinction. This involves avoiding certain foods following a difficult period of illness after consuming that food. It is related to classical conditioning and results in changes in behaviors that occur even after only a single incidence of being ill. For instance, imagine that a person eats some ice cream just before getting sick and doing away with it. Due to this, he or she develops a taste aversion towards ice cream and ceases eating it. This could still happen even if the ice cream were previously one of your favorite foods. However, one way to overcome this resistance would be to reinforce and expose himself to ice cream despite its side effects that made him feel a little sick. For instance, the person may start by taking smaller tastes over and over again.  However, the conditioned aversion towards ice cream eventually stops or disappears as he continues to eat the ice cream without getting sick. Generally, people find themselves avoiding certain types of food for a long time because they ate that food before they became sick. The conditioned taste aversion might occur even if a person’s illness is not connected to eating a particular food (Thomas, 2021).

Another example in the real world is seen in casinos and betting sites. You will notice that people often increase their betting amounts in a casino even when they are losing more than what they are winning. This is because of the rewards, which are inconsistent over time. It is evident that these inconsistent rewards lead to increased trials and attempts to get the rewards. However, decreasing this stimulus would worsen the situation. The only way of ceasing the behavior is to remove the reward.

What about learning something new? Here comes another example. A child may be crying to be given a toy. When the child doesn’t get the toy, the cry might grow harder and louder. This unwanted behavior manifests before it becomes extinct. This does not mean that the child has learned that crying will bring a toy. It is because the child has learned a new fact. They learn a new association that inhibiting excitements yields better results. Also, a child may misbehave when they associate with getting more attention. Also, being patient and avoiding giving a toy or a reward to this child would facilitate extinction.

Conclusion

Generally, many unwanted behaviors, such as betting, smoking, food aversions, and other physical fear reactions, can be eliminated by bringing about extinction. In addition, the presence of reinforcement plays a role in extinction. For instance, the absence of reinforcement means that the behavior or response is weak and subject to extinction. Although punishment can reduce unwanted behaviors, problem behavior can be better reduced through extinction, a less aversive procedure (Puskar, 2021). However, for extinction to occur, the behaviors need to be identified, establish new ones and follow procedures based on negative, positive, and automatic reinforcement. This, however, should be done with the assistance of mental health professionals.