Question

At one time Jimmy was scared of dogs because he was bitten by one. With subsequent repeated exposure to tame dogs in safe settings, however, his fear of dogs has gradually faded. Jimmy's diminishing fear of dogs best illustrates______.

Answer 1

Extinction

Step-by-step explanation:

In classical conditioning, the term extinction refers to the disappearance of a previously learned behavior.

Extinction usually happens when the behavior stops being reinforced or the individual goes through a process of 'unlearning' the behavior by starting making new associations until the original behavior does not longer appears.

In this example, Jimmy got bitten by one dog and he started being scared of dogs, thus, this is a learned behavior that he has. However, he was exposed to dogs in safe settings and his fear has faded now: Jimmy went through a process in which he 'unlearned' the behavior of fear and now this fear has faded.

Therefore we can conclude that this is an example of Extinction.