ABSTRACT
One of the most common behaviors correlated with the occurrence of aversive events is the tendency of organisms to escape from stimuli associated with that aversive event. Escape from the presenting stimuli permits avoidance of other current and impending aversive stimuli. As such, avoidance models of learning have developed from a vast historical research literature with animals. This literature was embraced early on for its potential to advance theoretical generality to human psychopathology, as it became clear that avoidance behavior generated by feared aversive events in the animal laboratory could provide a systematic database for investigating the complex development and maintenance of human symptomatic behavior (Brown, 1961; Dollard & Miller, 1950; Mowrer, 1939; Shaw, 1946; Shoben, 1949; Skinner, 1953, 1954; Stampfl, 1961; Wolpe, 1958). Thus, principles derived mainly from animal research became regarded as important foundations from which behavioral laws could be developed and applied to clinical human psychopathology.
