Drugs As Stimulus
Throughout life we are subjected to
countless stimuli, and our responses to
those stimuli shape and affect our
lives and those surrounding us. This example
of real life classical
conditioning is one that took a negative affect on a
close friend of mine. My
senior year in high school my friend formed a new group
of people he
associated with. This was not a problem until drugs entered the
equation, and
soon after he began to associate drug use with fun, and enjoyment
whereas
before just hanging out with his new friends provided his fun and
enjoyment.
This conditioning occurred because he was too ignorant to realize
that it was
his friends and not the drugs that provided the good times. This
example is
one of classical conditioning, because it involves the association of
two
stimuli, drugs and friends, one of which had no previous effect one him
(the
drugs). Eventually through classical conditioning drugs triggered a
response of
enjoyment. This differs from operant conditioning because his
behavior with the
associated stimulus (drugs) was not strengthened or
diminished from
reinforcement or punishment. The critical elements in my
example include: the
unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned stimulus, the
unconditioned response,
and the conditioned response. The unconditioned
stimulus is the group of friends
he hung out with. These friends of his
naturally and automatically triggered a
response in him, and that response
was enjoyment and happiness. The
unconditioned response was his reaction from
his friends, and this reaction was
one of happiness and enjoyment. The
conditioned stimulus was the drugs he
started using. He began to associate
this stimulus, which was neutral when
introduced, with the enjoyment he had
when with his friends. The conditioned
response was the same as the
unconditioned response, happiness, and enjoyment.
However, the
conditioned response was in response to the drugs and not his
friends. So,
eventually in his mind drug use meant a good time, when in reality
it was
slowly killing him. Using the example of my friend there are several ways
to
change his response to his continued drug use. One such option would be
to
distance my friend from his other friends, and then in time hopefully the
use of
drugs would become extinct, because he wouldn’t associate drugs with
enjoyment
and realize how bad they are. One problem with this is the
possibility of
spontaneous recovery or relapse; this especially has a much
greater chance with
a drug user because you have to factor in the addiction
problem. Another
possibility to change his conditioning involves the concept
of generalization.
Many associate drug use with risk taking, if he could
find some risky yet
healthy behavior such as sky diving or mountain climbing,
those new risks could
take the place of the drugs. This is a somewhat similar
method as when hardcore
heroin addicts are placed on methadone to satisfy the
cravings. However due to
discrimination he might find these new risks to
dissimilar to the old and not
have the same controlled response of pleasure
and enjoyment. A final possibility
that could work would be to introduce a
new controlled stimulus in a structured
environment, such as therapy. This
new stimulus could be anything from electric
shock applied when a craving for
drugs occur or pictures or stories from drug
addicts that will leave a
negative image in his head whenever he thinks of using
drugs. The idea behind
this would be to replace the feelings of pleasure
associated with drug use to
feelings of discomfort and disgust whenever he
thinks of drugs. Through one
or perhaps all three techniques my friends drug use
will stop, I guess I will
have to wait and find out.