Writing Feedback / Classical Conditioning Narrative - Psychology 101 Course [2]

INSTRUCTIONS: 1.
Provide an original example from your own life history of Classical Conditioning. Your example should provide enough specific detail to illustrate the concept. Explain how each of the five key terms listed below may apply to your example.

ESSAY
Classical Conditioning is defined by Gerrig (2012) as "a type of learning in which a conditioned response comes to be elicited by a conditioned stimulus that has acquired its power through an association with an unconditioned stimulus". As early as infancy, humans have been proven to reflexively experience fear at the sounds of loud noises (Gerrig, 2012).

The loud noise that elicits the response would be the unconditioned stimulus and the fear response would be the unconditioned response. Now add a neutral stimulus (NS) that does not naturally elicit fear, and introduce it in the company of the UCS. At this point, the subject may subconsciously learn to associate the feelings of fear with the NS. Suddenly the subject forgets what was the original source of their fear and now has a confusing phobia towards the (previously known as) NS (Gerrig, 2012).

I am still experiencing some detrimental effects of the classical conditioning I experienced as a child. When I was very young, my parents would often fight loudly and violently after I had gone to bed. Sometimes the fighting would wake me and sometimes it would prevent me from falling asleep at all. The one thing that remained consistent was that it filled me with extreme fear and anxiety.

As young as 5, I would feel my levels of anxiety increasing as bedtime approached. By the time I lay in bed, my arousal would be so intense that it would be several hours (on a good night) before I would pass out from exhaustion. I credit the onset of my insomnia to me subconsciously learning to associate bedtime with feeling anxious/aroused (Gerrig, 2012). In the following text, I will exemplify how the following five elements of classical conditioning applied to my anxiety at bedtime: Unconditioned Stimulus (US), Unconditioned Response (UCR), Neutral Stimulus (NS), Conditioned Response (CR), and Conditioned Stimulus (CS).

The US was originally the loud fighting that took place between my parents.

The UCR was my fear/anxiety/arousal that would occur because of the loud fighting.

The NS was originally bedtime. When the fighting began to occur mostly during bedtime, I began to associate bedtime with negative emotions like anxiety and fear. Bedtime then began its transformation from NS to CS.

Once I had firmly associated the originally NS (bedtime) with the UCS (fear), without the presence of the original UCS (fighting) present, then bedtime became the CS. At this point, my insomnia became the CR and the conditioning was complete (Gerrig, 2012).

Psychologist Mary Cover Jones (1924) showed that it could be possible for me to unlearn this association through counterconditioning. The goal of counterconditioning would be to replace the maladaptive response with one that is desirable (Gerrig, 2012).

To apply counterconditioning in my situation I would seek to replace the CR of anxiety/arousal with a CR of relaxation/sleep (Gerrig, 2012). To do this I would try to introduce a UCS or UCS's that would be conducive to eliciting a relaxing response (e.g., warm bath, calm activities, and meditation). The final goal in this process of learning would be to eventually association bedtime with feelings of serenity and relaxation.

[NEED HELP WITH CONCLUSION

Writing Feedback / Mindfulness Reflection - Communications course essay [3]

The below message is an essay I've already turned into my Communications course. I'm just asking for suggestions pertaining to my general writing style and for readers to point out any errors that I may have missed.

Mindfulness Reflection

Do you remember that show Herman's Head that was on in the 90's? Every time the protagonist of the sitcom, Herman, would have a thought, you could see the different aspects of his psyche having a dialogue in response to any outside stimuli. Sometimes, quite often, the personalities would conflict and fight for dominance until one of them would win and Herman would act accordingly. Herman was never aware of such powerful dynamics that were occurring inside of his mind and was often clueless at some of the impulsive behaviors he would act out. This show perfectly embodies what I see is the essence of mindlessness.

How often do we find ourselves in similar situations? When we're just going on about our lives and day-to-day activities and interpersonal interactions and then suddenly-BAM. Something unexpected has snuck into the crevices of our minds, snowballed through our thoughts and emerged as some powerful dominating force. Then before we know it, we're saying things we don't understand or mean, feeling physically or mentally drained, and until we have some time to culture some hindsight, generally clueless or completely off-base about why we reacted (or failed to) the way we did.

In my life, I commonly have this difficulty. Though I've taken a series of courses and researched several resources on the subject of mindfulness, I find it a true obstacle in terms of interpersonal effectiveness. Especially in my relationship with my boyfriend. Maybe it's because we've had such a long run at having such completely ridiculous and ineffective conflicts. Maybe it's because our personalities are just destined to butt heads. Or, maybe, I just care so deeply about him that his opinions hit me in a really personal and powerful way.

Whatever the reasons for the problem are, the reasons behind finding a solution are much more important to me. I truly care about this person and wish to improve the dynamics of our relationship and ability to relate to each other very much. With this course and my goals in mind, I've begun to change my internal dialogue when speaking to or listening to him. Like Herman, I think I too have several different personality aspects in a constant struggle for control and I've been working hard at quieting the less appropriate ones.

It is very difficult to remember much of anything along the lines of rationality when we get caught up in a very emotionally-charged argument. In an effort to improve my ability to practice mindfulness and awareness, and to develop mindful habits, I started first during non-conversational activities (such as cleaning house, just before going to sleep, and while feeding my baby son). DuBrin (2010) explains that an important element of making any true skill development possible is frequent practice (p9).

The more I practiced mindfulness during everyday activities, the more I began to notice it was becoming a habit. Before long, I became aware that I was becoming more aware during less heated, "chit-chat" conversations with my boyfriend, such as discussing the antics and concerns of our son, or discussing television shows. Once I would become aware that I had been subconsciously practicing mindfulness, I would recall DuBrin (2010) explaining that it is important to minimize distractions in order to be an effective listener (p84), and would have to quickly redirect my attention back towards the conversation.

This is where I recognized the vast difference between personal mindfulness and interpersonal mindfulness. When practicing alone, I have only my own self to observe. But when engaging in interpersonal communication, I have to try to find a balance between maintaining an appropriate level of conscientious mindfulness while communicating with myself and implementing effective listening skills during mindful communication with others. In other words, it's not easy being in two places (inside my head and out) at the same time. Does difficult mean impossible? No. But it can mean improbable if lacking genuine effort and ethical intent.

In summary, I will continue to practice the two behaviors mentioned above in order to improve my mindfulness skills. It is my belief that with enough awareness, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence, that I can improve my interpersonal relationships immensely. I intend to combine the knowledge of the lessons I've learned throughout my life with this Interpersonal Effectiveness course to develop a competent Interpersonal Improvement Plan.