Hunger, Drive and Conditioning

Unlike the present writer (Franks, 1957) Davis and Griffith (1963) found that, in accord with Spence-Hull theory, hunger increases conditionabilicy. Noting that the earlier study used eyeblink to air-puff as the conditioning vehicle whereas they employed PGR to electric shock, the discrepancy berween findings is attributed to the possibility that anxiety itself acts as a catalyst for conditioning to occur, hunger making the organism more sensitive. Electric shock excites sufficiently to provoke and activate this latent anxiety state in hungry, sensitized Ss, but not in the non-hungry group. No evidence is offered to support this major modification of Spence's concept of D as a generalized drive and no reason is given why anxiety per se should have this curious catalytic effect. If Ss were excited by shock during eyeblink conditioning, would hunger then facilitate conditioning? An alternative explanation stems from the twin possibilities that drives in general and autonomic activity are closely related and that hunger, in particular, manifests itself especially by increased autonomic activiry and sensitivity. Increased drive, if sufficient, could facilitate any kind of conditioning. A day's food deprivation might facilitate autonomic conditioning but not eyeblink. Thus, in making predictions, the source and site of action of the drive and the response being conditioned or learned must be given consideration. This alternative is testable and, in contrast to the explanation of Davis and Griffith, it also does less violation to Spence's position. Increasing evidence suggests that the present writer's original jnrerpretation of his 1957 data was far too limited and simple. Explanations of conditioning and learning phenomena solely in terms of either habit strength and its excitatory-inhibitory components (associated with introversion-extraversion) or drive strength and its autonomic and other components (associated with anxiety and neuroticism) are necessarily incomplete. Both aspects now appear pertinent to most situations and related in a complex manner, the precise interactions and relative influences being dependent on the circumstances (Claridge, 1961; Eysenck, 1962; Franks, 1962). This, together with the impact of as yet insufficiently explored parameters such as attitude, suggestion and motivation, could account for facts such as: (1) the wide array of apparently conflicting findings with respect to conditioning, learning, personality and drive variables; (2) different types of conditioning (PGR, eyeblink, cardiac rate, finger withdrawal) do not usually intercorrelate well (a general factor of conditioning, if demonstrated, would probably account for only a small portion of the total variance in any one conditioning situation); and (3) hysterics tend to have lower neuroticism scores than dysthymics on instruments such as the Maudsley Personality Inventory (Sigal, Star, & Franks, 1958)

Action (physics · Anxiety · Classical conditioning · Cognitive psychology · Conditioning · Developmental psychology · Fear conditioning · Physics · Psychiatry · Shock (circulatory · Internal Medicine · Medicine · Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior · Neuroscience · Neuroscience of respiration and sleep · Psychology · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending

• Food Deprivation, Conditioning, and Maze Learning

  Open Access•John Eisele Davis, Richard M Griffith•Psychological Reports•1963

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• Arousal and Inhibition as Determinants of the Performance of Neurotics

  Open Access•Gordon Claridge, G S CLARIDGE•British Journal of Psychology•1961

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• Hysterics and dysthymics as criterion groups in the study of introversion-extraversion

  John J Sigal, Kolman H Star et al.•Journal of Abnormal & Social…•1958

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