Avoidance response

It is a reaction to undesirable sensations or feedback that leads to avoiding the behavior that is followed by this unpleasant or fear-inducing stimulus.

Whether the aversive stimulus is brought on intentionally by another or is naturally occurring, it is adaptive to learn to avoid situations that have previously yielded negative outcomes.

The subjects, dogs, were put in a shuttle box (a chamber containing two rectangular compartments divided by a barrier a few inches high).

However, after several trials, the dog began to make avoidance responses and would jump over the barrier when the light turned off, and would not receive the shock.

B.F. Skinner (1938)[8] believed that animals learn primarily through rewards and punishments, the basis of operant conditioning.

People with obsessive compulsive disorder may learn to avoid using public restrooms because it produces anxiety in them (aversive stimulus).

[9] When these areas of the brain are lesioned or removed, animals display difficulty in maintaining a conditioned avoidance response.

This is a method in which the subject is forced to remain in the fearsome or aversive situation and not allowed the opportunity to avoid it.