Estella is afraid of cats. To help her overcome her fear, her mother calmly pets and strokes a cat while Estella is watching. Her mother encourages her to imitate her behavior. Estella's mother is using ________________.

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Estella's mother is using modeling, which involves demonstrating a desired behavior for someone else to imitate. In this case, her mother is demonstrating calm behavior around cats in order to encourage Estella to do the same and overcome her fear. Systematic desensitization, aversive conditioning, and flooding all involve different techniques for reducing or eliminating fears or phobias, but none of these techniques are being employed in this scenario.

Estella Is Afraid of Cats