Carly used to be afraid of visits to her family doctor because she associated the sight of his waiting room with the pain of having a blood sample drawn. However, Carly's new doctor's lab worker is "painless," and the sight of the waiting room is no longer associated with pain. Consequently, Carly finds her fear of visits to her family doctor has disappeared. This illustrates the classical conditioning process known as

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This scenario demonstrates classical conditioning, where the sight of the waiting room paired with the pain of having a blood sample drawn led to Carly's fear of visiting the doctor. However, when that pairing is no longer present (i.e., the lab worker is "painless"), the association weakens, leading to the disappearance of Carly's fear. This process is known as extinction. Spontaneous recovery refers to the reappearance of a previously extinguished conditioned response, which is not demonstrated in this scenario. Second-order conditioning involves pairing a neutral stimulus with a conditioned stimulus to create a new conditioned response, which is also not apparent in this scenario. Finally, avoidance is a behavioral response that individuals might exhibit to avoid the conditioned stimulus altogether, which is not evident in this scenario.

Carly Used to Be Afraid of Visits to Her Family