In most studies on avoidance learning, participants receive an aversive unconditioned stimulus after a warning signal is presented, unless the participant performs a particular response. Lovibond (2006) recently proposed a cognitive theory of avoidance learning, according to which avoidance behaviour is a function of both Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning. In line with this theory, we found that avoidance behaviour was based on an integration of acquired knowledge about, on the one hand, the relation between stimuli and, on the other hand, the relation between behaviour and stimuli.
BalleineB. W.DickinsonA. (1998). Goal-directed instrumental action: Contingency and incentive learning and their cortical substrates.Neuropharmacology37, 407–419.
2.
BollesR. C.StokesL. W.YoungerM. S. (1966). Does CS termination reinforce avoidance behaviour?.Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology62, 201–207.
3.
ColwillR. M.RescorlaR. A. (1990). Evidence for the hierarchical structure of instrumental learning.Animal Learning & Behavior18, 71–82.
4.
DeclercqM.De HouwerJ. (2008). On the role of US expectancies in avoidance behavior.Psychonomic Bulletin and Review15, 199–102.
5.
De HouwerJ.CrombezG.BaeyensF. (2005a). Avoidance behavior can function as a negative occasion setter.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes31, 101–106.
6.
De HouwerJ.VandorpeS.BeckersT. (2005b). On the role of controlled reasoning processes in human associative learning.New directions in human associative learningWillsA.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc41–63.
7.
GrayJ. A. (1987). The learning of active avoidance.The psychology of fear and stressGrayJ. A.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press207–240.
8.
HahnU.ChaterN. (1998). Similarity and rules: Distinct? Exhaustive? Empirically distinguishable?.Cognition65, 197–230.
9.
HermansD.ClarysseJ.BaeyensF.SpruytA. (2005). Affect (Version 4.0) [Computer software]Leuven, Belgium: University of Leuven Retrieved October 16, 2006, from http://www.psy.kuleuven.ac.be/leerpsy/affect4.
10.
HollandP. C. (1992). Occasion setting in Pavlovian conditioning.The Psychology of Learning and Motivation28, 69–125.
11.
LovibondP. F. (2003). Causal beliefs and conditioned responses: Retrospective revaluation induced by experience and by instruction.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition29, 97–106.
12.
LovibondP. F. (2006). Fear and avoidance: An integrated expectancy model.Fear and learning: Basic science to clinical applicationCraskeM. G.HermansD.VansteenwegenD.Washington, DC: American Psychological Association117–132.
13.
LovibondP. F.SaundersJ. C.WeidemannG.MitchellC. J. (in press). Evidence for expectancy as a mediator of avoidance and anxiety in a laboratory model of human avoidance learning.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
14.
McAllisterD. E.McAllisterW. R. (1991). Fear theory and aversively motivated behavior: Some controversial issues.Fear, avoidance and phobiasDennyM. R.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc135–163.
15.
MitchellC. J.LovibondP. F. (2002). Backward and forward blocking in human electrodermal conditioning: Blocking requires an assumption of outcome additivity.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology55B, 311–330.
16.
MowrerO. H. (1947). On the dual nature of learning: A reinterpretation of “conditioning” and “problemsolving”.Harvard Educational Review17, 102–148.
17.
RachmannS. (1977). The conditioning theory of fear-acquisition: A critical examination.Behaviour Research and Therapy15, 375–387.
18.
SeligmanM. E. P.JohnstonJ. C. (1973). A cognitive theory of avoidance learning.Contemporary approaches to conditioning and learningMcGuiganF. J.LumsdenD. B.New York: Wiley69–110.
19.
SidmanM. (1962). Classical avoidance without a warning stimulus.Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior5, 97–104.
20.
SolomonR. L.WynneL. C. (1953). Traumatic avoidance learning: Acquisition in normal dogs.Psychological Monographs: General and Applied67, 1–19.
21.
StarrM. D.MinekaS. (1977). Determinants of fear over the course of avoidance learning.Learning and Motivation8, 332–350.
