Question

a patient who had long feared going into elevators was told by his therapist to force himself to enter 20 elevators a day. the therapist most likely wanted to encourage the _______ of the patients fear. a discrimination b extinction c spontaneous recovery d generalization

Explanation:

In classical conditioning, extinction occurs when a conditioned response (fear of elevators) diminishes because the conditioned stimulus (elevators) is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus (a traumatic event). The therapist's instruction to enter elevators repeatedly aims to remove the fear response through this process.

• Discrimination is about differentiating between stimuli, which is not relevant here.
• Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a previously extinguished response, which is the opposite of what the therapist wants.
• Generalization is applying a response to similar stimuli, not reducing a specific fear.

Answer:

B. extinction