Question

As Jordan watches, his brother gets an electric shock from touching the worn toaster cord. Jordan is now intensely afraid of toasters. This best illustrates that fear can be learned through:

a) Operant conditioning
b) Classical conditioning
c) Social learning
d) Cognitive modeling

Answer 1

Fear can be learned through classical conditioning, where two stimuli are paired to produce a learned response. In Jordan's case, his fear of toasters was learned through witnessing his brother experiencing an electric shock while touching a worn toaster cord.

Step-by-step explanation:

Fear can be learned through classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of associative learning in which one stimulus is paired with another stimulus to produce a learned response.

A classic example of classical conditioning is Pavlov's dog experiment, in which a bell (neutral stimulus) was paired with the presentation of food (unconditioned stimulus), resulting in the dog salivating (unconditioned response). Eventually, the bell alone became a conditioned stimulus that elicited salivation, even without the presence of food.

In Jordan's situation, his fear of toasters was learned through classical conditioning. Witnessing his brother getting an electric shock (unconditioned stimulus) while touching the worn toaster cord (neutral stimulus) paired fear (unconditioned response) with toasters (conditioned stimulus), causing Jordan to develop an intense fear of toasters (conditioned response).