Mariah developed a fear of the water when she fell off a river raft last summer. This year, she took swimming lessons and thought she had finally overcome her fear of water. She was eagerly looking forward to an upcoming rafting trip, but as soon as she stepped onto the raft, she was instantly terrified again. This illustrates the classical conditioning process known as
A)extinction.
B)second-order conditioning.
C)stimulus generalization.
D)spontaneous recovery.

Question

Mariah developed a fear of the water when she fell off a river raft last summer. This year, she took swimming lessons and thought she had finally overcome her fear of water. She was eagerly looking forward to an upcoming rafting trip, but as soon as she stepped onto the raft, she was instantly terrified again. This illustrates the classical conditioning process known as ​
A)extinction.
B)second-order conditioning.
C)stimulus generalization.
D)spontaneous recovery.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Spontaneous recovery refers to the sudden reappearance of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a period of no exposure to the conditioned stimulus. In Mariah's case, her fear of water had diminished after swimming lessons (extinction), but the fear returned unexpectedly when she encountered the specific situation (rafting) that initially caused the fear, illustrating spontaneous recovery.

Mariah Developed a Fear of the Water When She Fell