Friday, June 18, 2021

Avoidance Learning and Social Anxiety

     Avoidance learning are learned coping strategies that attempt to prevent exposure to a situation or stimulus that evokes fear. Since the negative feeling of fear is removed when the situation is avoided, avoidance becomes a reinforcing reward (MentalHealth.net). Due to the reinforcement of this behavior being the absence of punishment, avoidance learning is an interesting topic in psychology. An example of avoidance learning is avoiding a yard where there is a barking dog. The avoidance behavior of avoiding a barking dog is stronger in individuals who have been bit by a dog before (Psychology.jrank.org).

    Excessive avoidance may be a sign of an anxiety disorder. For example, an individual with social anxiety is likely to avoid large social situations as a coping strategy. Since the avoidance of a social situation takes away their symptoms of anxiety, avoidance is reinforced as their preferred coping method (MentalHelp.net). Additionally, if an individual with social anxiety was experiencing a panic attack in a social situation, leaving the social situation would greatly reduce their symptoms soon after.

https://psychology.jrank.org/pages/61/Avoidance-Learning.html#:~:text=An%20example%20of%20avoidance%20learning,been%20attacked%20by%20a%20dog

https://www.mentalhelp.net/anxiety/operant-conditioning-and-avoidance-learning/ 


5 comments:

  1. Hey Amy! Great Post!

    I think it is interesting how we can do this aviodance behavior and sometimes not even realize this is what we are doing. I love the graphic you added in, it is a great visual on how we avoid certain things!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also, This is Hailey Hinton for some reason its posted as unknown.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amy,
    Awesome post, thanks for all the links and the graphic.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Amy, I enjoyed looking through the articles attached and applying it to my life and my social anxiety.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Information is very informative also you can click Anxiety Therapy ,and get such type of info, this is the great resource to get such type of information.

    ReplyDelete