PSY140 Final: PSY143 ESQ NOTES (W6-12)
WEEK 6 POWERPOINT NOTES
Early Theoretical Perspectives
Of Trauma
EARLY THEORIES OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS RESPONSE: CONDITIONING
THEORIES
Mowrers Two-Factor Learning Theory (1960) →
• Based on the principles of conditioning
• The trauma event itself was powerful enough to elicit a fear response acquired
via classical conditioning
Classic Conditioning → Pavlovs dog was classically conditioned to salivate at the sound
of a bell
• conditioned stimulus (the sound of a bell) is paired with and precedes the
unconditioned stimulus (the sight of food, which makes the dog salivate)
• this is repeated until the conditioned stimulus alone (the sound of the bell) is
sufficient to elicit the response (as salivation in a dog)
What this means in Conditioning Theories of Trauma →
• a neutral stimulus presented within the environment during the event is also
capable of arousing fear through the processes of stimulus generalisation (e.g.,
Keane, Zimering & Caddell, 1985)
In most PTSD theories → the conditioned fear response was, and still is, considered to
develop in the context of a dose-response relationship
• event characteristics (e.g., severity and duration) determine the strength of the
conditioned response (American Psychiatric Association, 2000, p. 464)
The second factor implicit in the conditioning theory perspective → relied on the
principles of Instrumental Conditioning
• conditioning that occurs when reinforcement or punishment are used to either
increase or decrease the probability that a behaviour will occur again in the
future
Higher-order conditioning and stimulus generalisation → considered responsible for
increased avoidance behaviours of internal and external conditioned cues that elicited
the trauma memory (Fairbank & Nicholson, 1987)
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Keane et al (1985) → applied Mowrers Two-Factor Learning Theory to understanding
posttraumatic symptoms in a sample of Vietnam War Veterans
• Hypothesis → exposure to combat trauma was intense enough to generate
conditioning to many stimuli (including harmless stimuli) → in turn, triggering
memories, anxiety and physiological arousal within the individual
• Maintenance of such associations and symptomology occurred via the avoidance
strategies engaged in by the individuals
• This was because avoidance strategies reduced fear → in turn, reinforcing those
strategies (instrumental conditioning)
EARLY THEORIES OF POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS RESPONSE: INFORMATION
PROCESSING AND NETWORK THEORIES
Information Processing Theories → grounded in the cognitive school of thought
• underpinned by associations between emotion, memory and neuro-physiological
reactivity
• takes into account the social cognitive position → successful processing of
trauma information requires integration of the trauma information into existing
schemata
Bio-Informational Theory (Lang, 1979, 1994) →
• emotional experiences are organised and represented in memory networks
• Fear memories → a network of three broad categories of interconnected points
of information:
1. Stimulus Information → a representation of perceptual information (e.g., the
sights and sounds of trauma)
2. Response Information → represents the physiological and behavioural reactions
to the trauma event
3. Meaning
Dynamic between these three categories of information → results in representations of
the trauma in memory
• that enable the individual to respond quickly and appropriately (fight or flight
from danger) → should the same or similar event arise in the future
• process is facilitated by the storing of the emotion of the event in the memory as
an information structure
• (including stimuli responses and the meaning assigned to the initiating stimulus
and response information) (Lang, 1994)
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Foa et al. (1989) → encoding of trauma events occurs via a fear network of associated
points of trauma-related information
• fear structures in memory comprise:
1. stimulus information about the trauma event
2. response information (physiological and behavioural response)
3. information about the meaning of the stimulus and response elements
• Fear network → an information structure of escape and avoidance behaviour
• different to other memory stores → as the meaning assigned within this
structure is one of danger
Foa et al. (1989) → meaning of the event, and more specifically the level of significance
in challenging pre-trauma beliefs about safety → fundamental to understanding the
development and maintenance of trauma symptoms
• This proposition was unlike the theories of information processing put forward
by theorists such as Lang (1977) → argued that emotion was central to
understanding trauma reaction
The violation of previously held safety beliefs, coupled with physiological arousal →
• was suggested by Foa et al. (1989) to create a specific type of representation in
the memory that is differentiated from non-trauma memories
Trauma events were thought to create strong associations between fear nodes that
represent behavioural and physiological responses to the event
• unlike the weaker associations of a non-traumatic event and non-fearful or
neutral mood states
• These strong associations → in turn, lead to a far more readily activated fear
response in the presence of trauma and/or safety belief cues.
Foa et al. (1989) → outlined a number of reasons for corrective information being
difficult to integrate → in an attempt to explain the development and maintenance of
symptomology
• Primary to these reasons →
• the incompatibility of trauma events (which are uncontrollable and
unpredictable in nature) with pre-trauma models of events occurring in an
individuals life in a controllable and predictable way
Individuals who have widespread fear networks display →
• heightened attentional biases for threat and fear stimuli
• and an exaggerated perception of the likelihood of actual danger
• heightened sensitivity to threat cues → leads to persistent activation of the fear
network
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Document Summary
Theories: based on the principles of conditioning, the trauma event itself was powerful enough to elicit a fear response acquired. What this means in conditioning theories of trauma : a neutral stimulus presented within the environment during the event is also capable of arousing fear through the processes of stimulus generalisation (e. g. , Higher-order conditioning and stimulus generalisation considered responsible for increased avoidance behaviours of internal and external conditioned cues that elicited the trauma memory (fairbank & nicholson, 1987) The violation of previously held safety beliefs, coupled with physiological arousal : was suggested by foa et al. (1989) to create a specific type of representation in the memory that is differentiated from non-trauma memories. Early theories of posttraumatic stress response: social cognitive. Duration of symptoms (avoidance, numbing and intrusions) is contingent on the ongoing working-through process (as trauma information remains in active memory) thus, when assimilation of the trauma information is prolonged, so too are the corresponding trauma symptoms.
