Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

approaches. 
Building on the basic processes of learning, behavioral treatment 
approaches make this fundamental assumption: Both abnormal behavior and normal 
behavior are learned . People who act abnormally either have failed to learn the skills 
they need to cope with the problems of everyday living or have acquired faulty skills 
and patterns that are being maintained through some form of reinforcement. To 
modify abnormal behavior, then, proponents of behavioral 
approaches propose that people must learn new behavior to 
replace the faulty skills they have developed and unlearn their 
maladaptive behavior patterns (Krijn et al., 2004; Norton & 
Price, 2007). 
Behavioral psychologists do not need to delve into peo-
ple’s pasts or their psyches. Rather than viewing abnormal 
behavior as a symptom of an underlying problem, they con-
sider the abnormal behavior as the problem in need of mod-
ifi cation. The goal of therapy is to change people’s behavior 
to allow them to function more effectively, such as the treat-
ment that was employed with Marg MacKrell, whose case was 
discussed in the chapter Prologue. In this view, then, there is 
no problem other than the maladaptive behavior itself; if you 
can change that behavior, treatment is successful.
 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING TREATMENTS 
Suppose you bite into your favorite candy bar and fi nd that 
not only is it infested with ants, but you’ve also swallowed a 
bunch of them. You immediately become sick to your stomach 
and throw up. Your long-term reaction? You never eat that 
kind of candy bar again, and it may be months before you eat 
behavioral treatment approaches
Treatment approaches that build on 
the basic processes of learning, such as 
reinforcement and extinction, and 
assume that normal and abnormal 
behavior are both learned.
Behavioral approaches to treatment would seek to modify the 
behavior of this couple rather than to focus on the underlying 
causes of the behavior.
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