association of drugs and pleasure essays

association of drugs and pleasure essays Throughout life we are subjected to countless stimuli, and our responses to those stimuli shape and affect our lives and those surrounding us. This example of real life classical conditioning is one that took a negative affect on a close friend of mine. My senior year in high school my friend formed a new group of people he associated with. This was not a problem until drugs entered the equation, and soon after he began to associate drug use with fun, and enjoyment whereas before just hanging out with his new friends provided his fun and enjoyment. This conditioning occurred because he was too ignorant to realize that it was his friends and not the drugs that provided the good times. This example is one of classical conditioning, because it involves the association of two stimuli, drugs and friends, one of which had no previous effect one him (the drugs). Eventually through classical conditioning drugs triggered a response of enjoyment. This differs from operant conditioning because his behavior with the associated stimulus (drugs) was not strengthened or diminished from reinforcement or punishment. The critical elements in my example include: the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned response, and the conditioned response. The unconditioned stimulus is the group of friends he hung out with. These friends of his naturally and automatically triggered a response in him, and that response was enjoyment and happiness. The unconditioned response was his reaction from his friends, and this reaction was one of happiness and enjoyment. The conditioned stimulus was the drugs he started using. He began to associate this stimulus, which was neutral when introduced, with the enjoyment he had when with his friends. The conditioned response was the same as the unconditioned response, happiness, and enjoyment. However, the conditioned response was in response to t ...