Question

Two-year-old Philip was recently clawed by the neighbor's cat. Philip now fears all small animals. His fear demonstrates the process of __________. Group of answer choices spontaneous recovery operant conditioning generalization extinction

Answer 1

The correct answer is generalization

In conditioning, stimulus generalization is the tendency of the conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned.

The generalization of stimuli also explains why fear of a particular object often affects many similar objects. A person who is afraid of spiders will generally not be afraid of just one type of spider. Instead, this fear will apply to all types and sizes of spiders. The individual may even be afraid of spiders and images of toy spiders as well.