psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

, aversives are unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of Individual, individuals, organisms, systems or Artificial intelligence, artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or or ...

via negative reinforcement or positive

punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or beh ...

. By applying an aversive immediately before or after a behavior, the likelihood of the target behavior occurring in the future may be reduced. Aversives can vary from being slightly unpleasant or irritating to physically, psychologically and/or emotionally damaging.

Types of stimuli

There are two types of aversive stimuli:

Unconditioned

Unconditioned aversive stimuli naturally result in pain or discomfort and are often associated with biologically harmful or damaging substances or events. Examples include extreme

heat In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

cold Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjectivity, subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute t ...

, bitter flavors,

electric shock An electrical injury (electric injury) or electrical shock (electric shock) is damage sustained to the skin or internal organs on direct contact with an electric current. The injury depends on the Current density, density of the current, tissu ...

s, loud

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

s and

pain Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sense, sensory and emotional experience associated with, or res ...

. Aversives can be applied naturally (such as touching a hot stove) or in a contrived manner (such as during

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

or behavior modification).

Conditioned

A conditioned aversive stimulus is an initially

neutral stimulus A neutral stimulus is a stimulus which initially produces no specific response other than focusing attention. In classical conditioning, when used together with an unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus. With ...

that becomes aversive after repeated pairing with an unconditioned aversive stimulus. This type of stimulus would include consequences such as verbal warnings, gestures or even the sight of an individual who is disliked.

Use in applied behavior analysis (ABA)

Aversives may be used as

negative reinforcement In behavioral psychology, reinforcement refers to consequences that increase the likelihood of an organism's future behavior, typically in the presence of a particular '' antecedent stimulus''. For example, a rat can be trained to push a lever ...

during

applied behavior analysis Applied behavior analysis (ABA), also referred to as behavioral engineering, is a behavior modification system based on the principles of respondent and operant conditioning. ABA is the applied form of behavior analysis; the other two are: ...

. In early years, the use of aversives was represented as a less restrictive alternative to the methods used in mental institutions such as shock treatment, hydrotherapy, straitjacketing and frontal lobotomies. Early iterations of the Lovaas technique incorporated aversives, though Lovaas later abandoned their use. Over time the use of aversives has become less common, though they are still in use as of 2021. Several national and international disability rights groups have spoken against the use of aversive therapies, including TASH and the Autism National Committee (known as AUTCOM). Although it has generally fallen out of favor, at least one institution continues to use electric shocks on the skin as an aversive. A ruling in 2018 supported its continued use. The

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

has made a commitment to ban its use, but as of January 2019 has not yet done so. A report from the

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...

found that "the literature contains reports that when health care providers have resorted to punishers... the addition of punishers proved no more successful than ositive behavioral supportonly techniques... Reflecting this trend, a 2008 survey of members of the Association for Behavior Analysis found that providers generally view punishment procedures as having more negative side effects and being less successful than reinforcement procedures." The Behavior Analyst Certification Board has stated their support the use of aversives on children with consent by a parent or guardian.

Opposition

The use of aversives in applied behavior analysis is opposed by many advocacy groups for people with disabilities. These include: * Autistic Self Advocacy Network * Arc of the United States * Aspies For Freedom *

Autism Network International Autism Network International (ANI) is an advocacy organization run by and for autistic people. ANI's principles involve the anti-cure perspective, the perspective that there should not be a goal to "cure" people of autism. History ANI was star ...

References

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External links

Aversive stimulation at an education wiki
Behavioral concepts Punishment Torture