Question

1. Apply the concepts used in classical conditioning to explain drug addiction. How does a classical conditioning model account for tolerance? How does it account for withdrawal symptoms? Be sure to label the US, UR, CS, CR.

Answer 1

Classical conditioning is a behaviorist theory that states that pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditional stimulus (US) can lead to the unconditioned response (UR) . The neutral stimulus then goes on to become the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned response is a conditioned response (CR) once it is elicited by the conditioned stimulus.

For drug addiction the unconditioned stimulus could be the drug itself, alcohol in this instance, the unconditioned response is administering the drug. Now if there a social gathering, such as a party, this clubbed together with alcohol always present could lead to the parties eventually becoming an CS, which will lead to the urge of drinking CR. This could lead to potential addiction problem as the brain itself also goes through a feedback loop of dopamine highs.

Each time this continues, the threshold for alcohol intoxication also increases within an individual. As there is a tendency to develop tolerance to previous level of alcohol. That is, if one got effected by two glasses earlier, the tolerance increases to maybe three glasses to achieve the same effect. And classical conditioning plays a role in this as once on gets used to a certain amount, they require more.

Withdrawal is when the person suffers through certain unwanted (not pleasant) symptoms by virtue of abstinence. In this case, for instance, the person feels nervous jitters (US) from withdrawal whilst simultaneously involved in an anxious situation (CS) and this happens a few times, they will feel the need to take alcohol to alleviate the symptom (CR).