Premium
‘Preparedness' and the development of aversive associations
Author(s) -
Emerson Eric,
Lucas Helen
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1981.tb00529.x
Subject(s) - psychology , generality , preparedness , stimulus (psychology) , aversive stimulus , extinction (optical mineralogy) , conditioning , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , psychotherapist , paleontology , statistics , mathematics , political science , law , biology
The paper presents two studies investigating the role of the preparedness value of stimulus content in an aversive compound signal conditioning procedure. It was predicted that greater compound to component transfer would occur to ‘potentially phobic’ compared to ‘neutral’ stimulus components, and that responses to potentially phobic components would show a relatively greater resistance to extinction. Results from both studies failed to support these hypotheses thus questioning the generality of the previously demonstrated role of ‘preparedness’ in aversive associative processes.