All of us are familiar with the fact that people develop tolerance to many drugs. For example, people in hospitals require larger and larger doses of morphine to produce the same analgesic effect. That is, they have developed a tolerance to this drug. Those unfortunate people who have become addicted to morphine require larger and larger doses to produce the same effects because their tolerance is growing. Shepard Siegel was among the first psychologists to suggest that classical conditioning plays a major role in the development of tolerance to drugs, and this view is now widely accepted.

Here are some websites to help with the questions and research:

http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar04/pavlovian.aspx

http://www.academia.edu/5262345/Drug_Tolerance_and_Classical_Conditioning

http://people.whitman.edu/~herbrawt/classes/390/Siegel.pdf

Psychological Dependence and Classical Conditioning

YouTube Video: Tolerance and Withdrawal This video explains how the brain develops drug tolerance and withdrawal symptoms. The length of the video is 5:33 minutes. The video can be accessed via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vKLU5_Hgco

Assignment Instructions:

Write an essay of at least 800 words on the role of classical conditioning in the

development of tolerance to drugs. Direct your essay to a bright but uninformed

college student enrolled in a learning class. Your goal is to convince this student

that classical conditioning plays an important role in our lives and one example of

this is how it affects reactions to drugs. To do this, you need to explain clearly how

classical conditioning could work to produce drug tolerance, and then you need to

provide convincing evidence that this process really does occur. You might also

touch upon why it is important to understand this process. As always, list all of the

URLs you use to write your essay.