Question

george drinks three glasses of wine at home every evening, but rarely feels its effect. however, he feels the immediate effect of a single glass of wine on the rare occasions that he goes to a bar. which of the following classical conditioning concepts best explains this discrepancy in georges responses?

○ renewal

○ positive reinforcement

○ habituation

○ generalization

Explanation:

1. Analyze each option:

• Renewal: In classical conditioning, renewal occurs when a conditioned response (CR) reappears when the organism is returned to the original environment where conditioning took place, after the CR was extinguished in a different environment. George's home is a familiar environment where he drinks wine regularly (maybe the context where his body has adapted, and the "effect" response was lessened), and the bar is a different environment. When he is in the bar (a new environment), the response (feeling the effect of wine) reappears with a smaller dose. This fits renewal as the change in environment (bar vs. home) leads to the reappearance of the response.
• Positive reinforcement: Positive reinforcement is about increasing a behavior by adding a pleasant stimulus, which is not related to the discrepancy in George's response to wine in different environments.
• Habituation: Habituation is a decrease in response to a repeated stimulus, but it does not account for the difference in response based on the environment (home vs. bar).
• Generalization: Generalization is the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus, but here the difference is due to environment, not stimulus similarity.

Answer:

Renewal