Addiction as learned behaviour

1. Learning theory explains addiction as behaviour that is picked up through experience, in the same way as any other habit, rather than as something a person is born with.
2. It works through three processes you should be able to name and keep apart: classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning.
   1. Most real cases involve all three at once, with one process starting the behaviour and another keeping it going.

Classical conditioning and learned cues

1. Classical conditioning is learning by association, and it explains the cues that come to trigger a craving.
2. A place, a time of day, a smell or a particular group of people is present again and again when the substance or activity is used, so it becomes paired with the effect.
   1. After enough pairings the cue on its own produces the craving, without the substance being anywhere near.
3. This is why cues make relapse likely, because someone who has stopped can still feel a strong urge simply by walking past the place where they used to use.

Operant conditioning and reinforcement

1. Operant conditioning means behaviour is shaped by its consequences, so a consequence the person welcomes makes the behaviour more likely to be repeated.
2. Positive reinforcement happens when using adds something pleasant, such as a rush of enjoyment or a feeling of belonging, which strengthens the behaviour.
3. Negative reinforcement happens when using removes something unpleasant, such as withdrawal discomfort, boredom or anxiety, which strengthens the behaviour just as powerfully.
   1. Negative reinforcement explains why an addiction becomes so hard to stop, because after a while the person is using to stop feeling bad rather than to feel good.

Social learning and modelling

1. Social learning theory explains how the behaviour starts, through watching other people rather than through direct experience.
2. People imitate models they identify with, which for a young person usually means friends, older siblings, family members or figures in the media.
3. Vicarious reinforcement means seeing the model rewarded, for example looking relaxed, confident or accepted by the group, which makes imitation more likely before the observer has ever tried it.
   1. Approval that follows the first attempt then acts as direct reinforcement, so modelling hands the behaviour over to operant conditioning.

Strengths of the explanation

1. It explains relapse in a way a purely biological account struggles with, because conditioned cues keep their power long after the substance has left the body.
2. It is supported by treatments built on relearning, and Young (2007) found that clients treated with cognitive behavioural therapy for internet addiction were managing their symptoms effectively by sessions 8 and 12 and had held those gains at a six-month follow-up.

Weaknesses of the explanation

1. It is environmentally reductionist, explaining addiction through experience alone and leaving out the inherited vulnerability that the genetic explanation describes.
2. It cannot account for individual differences, because many people meet the same models and the same cues and never develop an addiction.

Turning this into marks

1. This is set on addiction only, so learning theory applied to depression earns nothing here.
2. Attach the point to the mechanism, so negative reinforcement because using removes the discomfort of withdrawal counts, while they picked it up from their friends does not.
3. The mark most often lost is describing the three processes without naming which cue, which reinforcer and which model appears in the person's situation.