When I signed up for this course I wasn't sure what to expect. It was between this and another psychology class, and I'm happy I decided not to drop this class. Other classes have mentioned operant and classical conditioning, but they never went really in depth with these two theories. I'm happy that text book dedicated chapters to these two concepts, because I always wanted to take a deeper look into them. I also liked that text book didn't just present the conceptual definitions of these subjects. There were also examples of the different types of research done to help prove these theories. The expanded look into the research done with Pavlov's dogs or the Skinner box come to mind. I thought it was interesting how the text book took the findings from the lab work, and then applied these theories into real life situations. These real life examples definitely gave me better insight into my own behavior, and also into observing the behavior of people around me.
A real life example I thought was interesting was the compensatory response model and how it relates to drug tolerance. Powell et al. (2009) defines compensatory response as a CS that is repeatedly associated with the primary response (a-process) that elicits a compensatory response (b-process). For example drinking a glass of alcohol in a fancy restaurant as opposed to bar will result in a person feeling more tipsy in the restaurant. Drug tolerance isn't only dependent on the amount of the drug ingested but also the environmental cues that will trigger the compensatory response someone has grown accustomed to. I found it interesting that drug overdoses sometime don't have to do with the amount of drugs taken. The familiar environmental cues aren't there to help the body maintain the correct homeostasis to survive.
A real life example I thought was interesting was the compensatory response model and how it relates to drug tolerance. Powell et al. (2009) defines compensatory response as a CS that is repeatedly associated with the primary response (a-process) that elicits a compensatory response (b-process). For example drinking a glass of alcohol in a fancy restaurant as opposed to bar will result in a person feeling more tipsy in the restaurant. Drug tolerance isn't only dependent on the amount of the drug ingested but also the environmental cues that will trigger the compensatory response someone has grown accustomed to. I found it interesting that drug overdoses sometime don't have to do with the amount of drugs taken. The familiar environmental cues aren't there to help the body maintain the correct homeostasis to survive.
I also really enjoyed how the book relates material to a variety of real-life applications. Not only does it make the information easier to understand but also makes many behaviors easier to understand than I thought were possible to understand. For example, abusive relationships were something that I have seen people experience, but I never thought they could be explained with any logic until I read this book.
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