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Sarkari MCQs Government Exam Question Bank
Question no. 86378

How might the actions of people exhibiting obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) be interpreted through instrumental learning principles?

Select your answer for: How might the actions of people exhibiting obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) be interpreted through instrumental learning principles?
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Answer: E. OCD behaviours are reinforced and maintained because they reduce anxiety

Explanation

Compulsive behaviors reduce distress temporarily, reinforcing the ritual through negative reinforcement learning principles. Performing a compulsion removes anxiety, which strengthens the likelihood of repeating the behavior. Instrumental learning explains OCD maintenance because compulsions act as operant behaviors maintained by anxiety reduction. Operant conditioning involves behaviors shaped by environmental consequences like reinforcement and punishment. Negative reinforcement occurs when the removal of an unpleasant stimulus strengthens a preceding action. Obsessions generate intense anxiety that drives the individual to execute compulsive neutralizing rituals.

Exposure and response prevention therapy interrupts this reinforcement cycle by blocking compulsive rituals. Behavioral therapists use extinction principles to help patients tolerate anxiety without performing compulsions. Understanding instrumental learning helps clinicians explain why obsessive-compulsive rituals persist over time. OCD behaviors are maintained by reinforcement mechanisms rather than being purely learned from biological relatives. Pairing stimuli describes classical conditioning rather than the operant reinforcement maintaining compulsions. Perceptual processing explanations overlook the critical behavioral reinforcement maintaining obsessive loops.

Subject
Psychology
Category
Psychology
Topic
—
Difficulty
medium

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