Psychology Keywords Addictive behaviour Addiction is the state

Psychology

Keywords • Addictive behaviour : Addiction is the state of periodic or chronic intoxication produced by repeated consumption of a drug, natural or synthetic (1957 WHO ) • Initiation: Refers to the process where individuals start to become addicted. • Maintenance: Is the process whereby people continue to behave addictively even in the face of adverse consequences.

Keywords • Relapse: The return of the signs and symptoms of a disorder after the individual had enjoyed a remission. i. e , a period without any signs or symptoms. • Recent definition of addictive behaviour: A repetitive habit or pattern that increases the risk of disease and / or associated personal and social problems. Addictive behaviours are often experienced subjectively as ‘loss of control’ – the behaviour contrives to occur despite volitional attempts to abstain or moderate use. These habit patterns are typically characterised by immediate gratification , often coupled by delayed deleterious effects. Attempts to change an addictive behaviour are typically marked with high relapse rates.

Biological Model Addiction

Cognitive Model • The cognitive model suggests that addictive behaviours are thought to occur more frequently in people who rely excessively on substances such as drugs or alcohol in order to maintain a balance between their physical and psychological needs (A key factor to such behaviour is said to be self –regulation. Self- regulation is when someone is weighing –up the relative importance of social and physical factors as well as ones own personal when planning behaviour) • More over, people who are involved in ‘self-destructive’ activities such as taking drugs, smoking or drinking alcohol as an addiction seem to have some form of uncontrolled actions. By this it means that sometimes they try to stop or try to reduce their intake of drugs however fail to do so. One apparent reason for this is when rational people behave in this way is that they have faulty ways of thinking when they are weighing up the consequences of an action.

� Ainslie has suggested that people behave In such a way because they attach too much weight to the immediate gratification or reward to the action they are going to take rather than thinking about the future consequences. � Beck et al suggested that addictive beliefs play an important part in the development of addictive behaviours. First they may think that the action is daring/fun or plain exciting, however after a while their mind of thought changes to ‘I need this drink or drug to get through this day’. They become dependant upon the substances. This could be mainly caused if that person is experiencing depression or an extreme case of anxiety.

�The cognitive processing model claims that addictive behaviours over a period of time become an automatic process and are therefore very difficult to stop as it has been practised so many times over a long time. �We are triggered with automatic responses everyday, resisting them is difficult and possible as long as everything else in life is stable, so for those experiencing stressful situation may find it impossibly hard to resist.

� Evaluation • Cognitive theories are useful in describing the thinking process of people with addictive behaviours. • Provides the basis for some helpful therapies for people who want to give up their behaviour. • Model can also offer a plausible explanation of why relapse may occur.

Cognitive • The cognitive explanation of addicted behaviours has a broarder explanation as to why such behaviours occur compared to the biological and learning as it includes factors of both others explanations as well. • However: not a convincing enough argument to explain why people take up such a self destructive behaviour in the first place.

Learning Model Social learning theory: This model of addicted behaviours incorporates some cognitive- behavioural such as labelling and the outcome of expectancy model. These approaches emphasise factors like expectancy , attributions, initiation and self-efficacy in the regulation of addictive behaviour.

�The learning theory sees addicted behaviour to be part • • of the individuals general behavioural repertoire. Instead of seeing addiction as an illness like the biological model, the learning theory rather sees addiction as the following: Things that can be unlearned. Acquired habits which are learned according to the principles of social learning. No different than other behaviours Believes that there are different degrees to smoking, taking drugs and alcohol etc.

�Classical Conditioning: is the process where an unconditioned stimulus such as sitting with a group of friends spontaneously produces an unconditioned response like feeling relaxed. When a conditioned stimulus is involved such as smoking a cigarette , frequently the conditioned stimulus may become a conditioned response – feeling relaxed. � In this way the individual have now associated smoking to having a reward, a positive effect and therefore the rate of repetition increases.

� Wikler explained that patients suffered from withdrawals symptoms if they didn’t not get another does of drug on time. He explained the withdrawal symptoms a an unconditioned response. Patients reacted by taking another dose as soon as. � This was considered an unavoidable psychological response. He also suggested that the patients used to associate the environment they had taken the drug in with the drug and therefore felt the urge increase to take on the substance when they returned to the environment. When reacting to the unconditioned response, they further exposed themselves to a whole new range of environmental cues.

�Operant conditioning : is a process that depends on the consequences of actions. For example, behaviours are likely to be repeated f they have been rewarded in some way. �In the case of addictive behaviour, the rewards will vary depending on the substance and on the individuals and their own needs , past experiences, personality, etc. Another important principle of the operant conditioning is that some actions and specific behaviours have more reward than others.

�For example if a person was taking drugs with their friends, they find it more exciting to take the substance in that environment than when they are alone and therefore this particular environment surrounded by friends acts as the stimulus for them to indulge in drug taking.