Understanding Addiction: Classical and Operant Conditioning

This essay explores the role of classical and operant conditioning in addiction, specifically focusing on drug addiction and gambling. It discusses the definitions of addiction, the influence of conditioning on addictive behaviors, and treatment interventions. The essay highlights the importance of understanding classical and operant conditioning in addressing addiction.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
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Introduction
The definition of addiction has changed over time and different definitions have been
linked to the specific attributes of particular drug classes. The significant changes have not been
free from the increasing drug consumption in the society and thus the understanding of specific
drugs and their usage have been identified as health as well as social problems. According to
McSweeney and Murphy (2014), in the clinical language 'dependence’ or less preferably
‘physical dependence’ has been utilised in preclinical research in order to define an underlying
departure state that would possibly generate in the absence of the drug. Comprehensive studies
of Piper (2015) have noted that in recent times, it has been understood that drugs are voluntarily
consumed and perhaps abused due to their supporting properties as they act as reinforcers of
drug-seeking and drug-taking behavioural patterns. Drug abuse and addiction have been
connected to increase unhealthy state of mind in addition to social as well as occupational
dysfunction. Regardless of considerable investments made in developing psychosocial
interventions for drug usages, few treatments have been confirmed to be helpful. The majority of
scholars dealing with drug addiction from an evidence-based standpoint have illustrated
addiction as a psychiatric disorder whereby individuals tend to engage in obsessive as well as an
regulated substance used regardless of the negative social, economic as well as health impacts
that the drug habit have not only on them but also on their families as well as communities
(Amigó, Micó and Caselles 2018). The following essay will evaluate the way classical and
operant conditioning can be used in order to explain addiction. In addition to this, it will further
use marijuana as a prominent example for drug addiction and unlawful acts like gambling with
the behavioural addiction. Furthermore the paper will highlight certain treatment interventions
which can be used in order to treat such a disorder.

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Discussion
The behavioural perspective tends to contradict the evidence-based perspective which has
been mentioned above. According to Brewer, Elwafi and Davis (2014), addictive behaviours
tend to be unsuitable and destructive and have the potential of consequential to severe losses at
the individual and societal level. All addictive behaviours persuade the general standards of
normal operant behaviour and consequently are regulated by the useful associations among
possibilities present in the environment. According to operant conditioning perspective, drug
usage and behavioural addiction have been considered as learning reactions which have certain
level of understanding to its own outcomes and thus can be considered as operant behaviours.
Wood and Rünger (2016) have claimed that laboratory animals tend to freely consume major
proportion of substances which have been identified to be highly addictive to humans.
Furthermore, learning and continuing newly developed behavioural patterns to receive constant
administration of such substances have also been highlighted by several scholars. Even though
behavioural patterns such as tolerance and removal responses tend to influence the regularity and
probability of drug use behaviour, voluntary drug consumption has the propensity to occur even
in the absence. However without any prior revelation, animals will have greater inclination of
voluntarily consuming huge quantities of addictive materials even after attaining levels that risk
overdose. Findings of James and Tunney (2017) have shown that addictive substances act as
unconditioned positive reinforcers.
According to Miguel et al. (2015), such unconditioned supports will result to the increase
of any behavioural pattern which has access to the uses of drug. As a consequence, behavioural
patterns related to drug usage have been restricted in accordance to the success and in only if
availability to the drug effect and thus has been considered as operant behaviour. Meanwhile, the

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findings of laboratory and clinical studies which involved human volunteers have revealed that
humans show elevated level of similarities to other species in relation to their response to the
unconditioned helpful reinforcement influence of drugs. Amigó, Micó and Caselles (2018) have
claimed that humans will obtain ideas and preserve new responses in order to accomplish drug
access and reach the towering levels of consumption along with a rise in the occurrence level of
drug usage in the presence of an aversive environmental stimulus and decrease that frequency if
helpful reinforcers have their presence in the environment. Thus, McSweeney and Murphy
(2014) have proposed that drug obsession is restricted by the principles and processes of operant
conditioning in humans as well as animals.
Meanwhile Wood and Rünger (2016) have shed light on ‘cue exposure therapy’ which
has been identified as a particular type of addiction treatment dependent on classical
conditioning. Classical conditioning, a form of learning discovered by Ivan Pavlov based on the
digestive system in dogs and involved two different kinds of stimuli. The cues related to
addiction have been understood as conditional stimuli. According to Miguel et al. (2015),
psychological experts have used classical conditioning in order to reduce several types of
behavioural patterns related to drug usage. The supervision of drug substance has been used as
an example of explaining addiction with classical conditioning which causes severe
nauseousness in a drug addict and falls sick even with the consumption of minimal quantity of
alcohol. The understanding of drug addiction deeply relies on the explanations of classical
conditioning and focus on the functioning of certain forms of addiction or drug dependencies.
The continuous habit of drug consumption can be cited as an example which has a tendency to
cause the body to balance with an attempt to counterbalance the influence of the drug usage.
Such a repeated consumption forces the consumer to require greater amount of the drug

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substance to take the equivalent effect which is regarded as tolerance effect. On the other hand,
the development of tolerance further considers the environmental or conditional attributes. These
attributes have been identified as the certain alertness of tolerance. For instance, cannabis
constitutes a particular taste and when it is consumed in a usual manner the body of the
consumer tends to act in an attempt to neutralize the impact. However, if cannabis consumption
has been repetitive, the consumer can face harmful effects of over dosage. Such an effect has
further been observed among consumers who have received the same effect and have become
tolerant to other form psychoactive drugs (Gross 2015).
However it is important to note that the substantial amount of consumption of cannabis
drugs tend to result to an overdose it is have been consumed in a different place. In contingency
management (CM), particularly in the Community Reinforcement Approach (CMA), the
continuation of addictive behavioural patterns have been perceived as an effect of unconditioned
as well as situational reinforcements connected to drug addiction and the lack of non-drug
substitute supports. Comprehensive studies of Brewer, Elwafi and Davis (2014) have mentioned
that the imbalanced rivalry between drug and non-drug centric reinforcers creates complexities to
modify unwanted and destructive behaviours resulting to drug addiction. In the view of Huys et
al. (2014), detrimental behavioural patterns can be efficiently changed through punishment or by
means of introducing positive interventions related to drug usages such as medication loyalty or
cure fulfilment. Moreover, Wood and Rünger (2016) have emphasized on the success of
punishment and also have shed light on certain limitations of such intervention. These limitations
primarily link to the augmented rates of treatment failure, introduction of negative emotional
surroundings and destruction of interpersonal relationships between healthcare providers and
patients. Furthermore, execution of beneficial supports in contingency management centric

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medication or drug interventions has illustrated more favourable results in comparison to the
ones received through the use of penalty. However, contingency management to gain efficiency
such methods has been considered as important. Such as carrying out alternative support,
improvement in arrangement of reinforcement, proper collection of suitable target behavioural
patterns along with direct reinforcement of target behavioural patterns. At this juncture
McSweeney and Murphy (2014) have shed light on the commonly used behaviour of drug
consumers which has been proven to be a verified treatment that is drug abstinence, a practice of
limiting drug addicts from indulging into more usage of the drug substance. However
contingency management treatments for drug addiction have further applied supportive
medication completion usually for marijuana antagonists along with medication intervention and
success of treatment goals. Amigó, Micó and Caselles (2018) have emphasised on the range of
medical supporters which contingency management treatments have applied that involves
deducting process on rights and provides accommodation facilities, voucher based incentives and
opportunities to be engaged in mainstream employment sector.
The universally applied CM interventions have relied on the allocation of voucher based
incentives. In this stage of treatment, patients receive vouchers which can be exchanged for other
possessions dependent upon confirmation of successful drug self-restraint. These incentives have
significant value which tends to rise as constant withdrawal of the use of drugs such as heroine
has been properly maintained (Budney et al. 2015). However during the escalations of the value
of these vouchers can happen with negative urine samples. Research conducted by Morean et al.
(2015) have revealed the value of contingency management treatment in drug addiction and
further suggesting substance self-denial from drugs like cannabis along with other type of drugs
such as tobacco and poly-drug usages. Miguel et al. (2015) dealing with drug addiction have

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found contingency management involvement to be highly useful in supporting continuous
abandonment of the practice of drug use from marijuana when practised in psychosocial
counselling treatment programs. Comprehensive studies of Amigó, Micó and Caselles (2018)
have underlined the effectiveness of CM in improving the behavioural patterns of drug
consumers. Such an enhanced behavioural pattern of drug users pandered in marijuana
consumption have been possible to medication devotion as well as treatment implementation
along with sustaining the achievement of treatment objectives. The implementation of
contingency management in the treatment of drug addiction has successfully led to the concern
as well as sustainability of abstinence for a substantial rate of drug users (Benishek et al. 2014).
Although the result of abstinence things to weaken after the end of the treatment, it is important
to note that the decline in outcomes after the treatment never reaches below the baseline
assessment.
On the other hand, behavioural addiction has been defined in relation to the potency of an
individual's connection to a certain activity based on its occurrence, constancy and extent
classical conditioning has been considered as a vital process in the development of one of the
detrimental behavioural addiction such as gambling. Considering the effect of gambling
experience with high level of excitement, it has been considered to have the potential in
generating physical alterations in adrenaline as well as endomorphic output. Livingstone (2017)
has noted that the continuous incidence of behavioural addiction can perhaps create several
classical conditioning effects. Findings of Nower and Blaszczynski (2017) have revealed that
several conditioned stimuli specially do not concern the situations of previous gambling
activities or actions related to past gambling events but also from the inner frame of mind can be
determined. Furthermore, previous cognitive efforts link to the preparations of gambling

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activities have further been taken into account. Bull, Tippett and Addis (2015) have observed
that gambling results to augmented excitement which has further been understood as reflecting
the biased emotions of excitement while carrying out such an activity. Moreover, Witts and
Harri-Dennis (2015) dealing with addiction have tried to emphasize on Pavlov’s experiments
where gambling environment have been aligned to the experiences of excitement created after
winning the game which has resulted to classical conditioning. The gambling environment has
been likely to look forward to the frequency of pleasure.
However, according to Bouton and Schepers (2015) punishment can be identified as a
type of back up for treating such behavioural patterns of gambling. Findings of Livingstone
(2017) have suggested that with severe punishment such as electric shock have a propensity to
reduce the occurrence of indulgence into gambling. Meanwhile successfully regulated gambling
activities can be efficiently regulated and reinforced. According to Bouton and Schepers (2015)
such reinforcements are likely to put in order and uphold cue exposure programs in gambling
activities which has been linked to drug abuse. For the treatment of reducing gambling addiction,
the heart rate recorder can be considered as an effective intervention in the methodical as well as
proficient approach towards the addiction. In this stage of treatment the records can be evaluated
in order to determine not only the regularity and development of the patient in turning off cue
exposure but further to make a distinction option on high arousal experiences which may be
cultured into effective addictions in order to replace such addictive behavioural patterns.
Conclusion
Hence to conclude, considering drug addiction, the theoretical framework of operant
conditioning has been supported by a considerable number of methods to rationally explicit
research studies in humans as well as in laboratory and clinical settings. The essay has explicitly

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evaluated ways in which drug use have been rigorously influenced by direct reinforcing agents of
a substance as well as by social supporters. However it is important to note that drug usage and
addiction have been regulated by its potential to generate certain consequences with specific
likelihood and thus have been regarded as operant behavioural patterns. Moreover it has been
mentioned that contingency management treatment which has shaped alternative non-drug
centric uses as well as have extinguished definite social drug centric reinforces have been proven
to be functional in reducing drug consumption. Furthermore on the other hand, explanations
related to classical and operant conditioning has been considered as highly decisive factors in the
development of gambling behaviour and has produced certain treatment interventions to reduce
such behavioural addictions. Moreover, the influences of the processes related to classical as
well as operant conditioning towards gambling behaviour have been reliant on individuals’
conditionability as well as reinforcement understanding.

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