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Anxiety Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the diagnostic criteria for a specific phobia?

A
  1. Disproportionate and immediate fear relating to specific object or situation
  2. Objects or situations are avoided or are tolerated with intense fear or anxiety
  3. Symptoms can’t be explained by other mental disorders and persist for at least 6 months
  4. Phobia causes significant distress and difficulty performing/ occupational activities
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2
Q

what is the preparedness theory (sieglman, 1971)?

A

This is the idea that we are born with a predisposition to acquire fear quickly for certain stimuli faster than others because of the treat of these stimuli to our ancient ancestors.

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3
Q

What is Beck’s theory of Anxiety?

A
  • Anxiety is asscoiated with apprasials of danger
  • some indivduals are more suseptible to appraising situations as dangerous because they posses schemas containing information about the dangerous meaning of situations and a diminished ability to deal with situations of danger and threat.
  • Once danger schemas are activated, apprasials are characterised by negative automatic thoughts of danger
  • these thoughts refelect themes of psychological, social and physical catastrophies directly or indirectly involving self
  • biases in processing associated with the schema activation maintain beliefs and apprasials
  • individuals will then typically try and reduce behaviour through thier behavioural responses of avoidence or saftey behaviours
  • these however instsify anxiety symptoms (by reinforcement) and prevent disconfirmation of belief in danger condition
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4
Q

What are the physical symptoms associated with anxiety?

A
  • Muscle tension
  • Dry mouth
  • Perspiring
  • Dizziness
  • Rapid or irregular heartbeat
  • Sexual problems and nightmares
  • Trembling
  • Difficulty swallowing
  • apetite and sleep difficulties
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5
Q

What are the most common phobias?

A
  • height phobia =4.7%
  • Blood, injury and injection =3.5%
  • Water phobia = 3.3
  • social phobia = 3.2%
  • Dental phobia = 3-5%
  • claustrabobia = 2.4
  • animal phobia = 1.1%
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6
Q

What is the diagnostic criteria for panic disorder?

A
  • recurrent unexpected panic attacks
  • at least one of the following has been followed by one month or more of one or both of the following:
    • persistent concern or worry about additional panic attacks (e.g. loosing control, ahving a heart attck, going crazy)
    • significant maladaptive change in behaviour related to the attacks
  • not attributed to substance
  • not attributable by other mental disorders
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7
Q

what is the diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder?

A
  • distinct fear of social interaction, typified around fear of receiving a negative judgment or of giving offense to others
  • social interactions are avoided or experienced with intense fear or anxiety
  • this fear/ avoidance lasts for 6 months+ and causes significant distress and difficulty in performing social or occupational activities
  • cannot be explained by other medical conditions, drug abuse or medication
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8
Q

What are the problems with the conditioning accounts?

A
  • many people with phobias cannot recall a traumatic event in the history of their phobia
  • not all people who have a traumatic conditioning experience develop anxiety/phobias
  • phobias only appear to develop in relation to certain stimuli
  • conditioning model cannot account for the phenomenon of incubation (where fear increases in magnitude over successive encounters, even though it is not followed by other traumatic stimulius) (eysenck, 1979)
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9
Q

What are the weaknesses to the evolutionary accounts of phobias?

A
  1. Accounts have developed on the fact that current phobic stimuli have actually acted as an important selection pressure in evolutionary past (this cannot be empirically verified)
  2. Evolutionary accounts created in ‘post hoc’ manner and we are at risk of creating adaptive stories/ imaginative reconstrictions
  3. they are easy to propose and difficult to substantiate
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10
Q

what are the disproportionate characteristics that are associated with worrying.

A
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11
Q

who came up with the non-associative fear learning proposal for phobias?

A

(Poulton and Menzies, 2002)

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12
Q

what support is there for the preparedness theory (siegleman, 1971)) and the non-associative explanations (Poulton and Menzies, 2002)?

A
  • It explains why we have some common themes in what people fear, especially to objects that don’t pose as much threat to our safety than other more modern objects
  • Children go through a fairly rigid developmental pattern of acquiring normal fears
  • It also does not exclude the idea that people can learn to fear certain stimuli more irrational fears
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13
Q

prevalence of specific phobias.

A

20% of adults in their life time

women are twice as likley

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14
Q

What is the prevalence of Social anxiety disorder?

A
  • 4-13%
  • 3:2 female: male ratio
  • lower in south-Asian countries than western countries
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15
Q

What are the cognitive theories of phobias?

A

Cognitive theories are based on the idea that phobias are caused by cognitive bias and maladaptive thinking

They, in opposition to the learning theories and preparedness theories, suggest that cognitive bias drive the phobia and cause the fear response.

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16
Q

What is GAD?

A

a pervasive condition in which the sufferer experiences continual apprehension and anxiety about future events, and this leads to chronic and pathological worrying about these events

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17
Q

What is the prevalence of panic disorder?

A
  • more women than men
  • 1.5-3% lifetime prevelence
  • asian societies are lower
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18
Q

what did davey (1997) suggest about outcome expectations of fears?

A
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19
Q

What are the learning theories associated with anxiety disorders?

A
  1. Fear conditioning - Watson and Rayner (1920) conditioned little Albert (healthy boy) into an anxious on by classical conditioning
  2. Mowrer- two stage model:
  • Step 1: classical conditioning of cues paired with trauma
  • step 2: learned avoidance (operant conditioning) via reinforcement (blocks extinction)
  1. outcome expectation (davey, 1997) - likelihood of whether an association is made between a stimulus and a traumatic event depends upon the person’s expectations prior to the learning episode.
  2. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) - direct reinforcement is not the casual mechanism but rather observable learning.
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20
Q

describe the saftey behaviours in panic disorders.

A
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21
Q

What is anxiety sensitivity? and how does may it relate to panic disorders?

A
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22
Q

what is disgust and how is it related to the creation of certain phobias?

A
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23
Q

evidence for observational learning g of phobias?

A

Laboratory reared rhesus monkeys can learn to fear snakes just by watching their mother fear snakes

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24
Q

what support is there for the learning theory of phobias?

A
  • Dollinger et al (1984) - found that children surviving a lightning strike showed more numerous and intense fears of thunder than control children
  • Yule et al (1990) - found that teenagers that have survived a sinking cruise ship showed excessive fears of water, ships and swimming and even modes of transport than their normal peers
  • Both of these suggest that a single traumatic event can lead to intense fears of objects related to traumas
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25
Q

What is a schema?

A

a core cognitive structure of beliefs and assumptions held by an individual.

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26
Q

What is the prevalence of anxiety

A
  • 40% of individuals in western society will develop an anxiety related disorder at some point in their lives (Shepherd et al 1996)
  • 28% lifetime prevalence (Kessler et al 2005)
  • More chronic than other disorders
  • When depression and anxiety co-occur there is evidence of a worse prognosis, than when either occurs alone (kroenke et al 2007)
  • high association between health and social costs
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27
Q

Describe the information processing bias in GAD

A
28
Q

what are the pssible biological causes of GAD?

A
29
Q

describe the role of behaviour in becks cognitive model

A
30
Q

Describe the cognitive theories of panic disorders.

A
31
Q

What are the cultural differences in specific phobias?

A

In Japan a common fear is embarrassing or offending others.

spiders are common in western countries, but less common in others

32
Q

What are the biological causes of panic disorder?

A
33
Q

What have some people suggested about the multiple pathways to phobias?

A

The idea that phobias can occur explained by multiple things.

some might be traumatic conditioning

some may be associated with disgust

34
Q

What biological causes are associated with social anxiety disorder?

A
  • Genes - there is some evidence for an underlying genetic component of social anxiety (although not clear how specif the component might be).
    children with social anxiety are more likley to have parents with phbic conditions than non-phobic children
    Twin studies also suggets there is some signifciant but moderate genetic influence of social anxiety disorder (betty et al 2002).
  • genes may influence traits of submissivness, anxiouness, social aviodnce and behavioural inhibition which can make a person more vulnerable to social anxiety
35
Q

What risk factors are associated with anxiety?

A
  • Age - anxiety can manifest differently across the lifespan but specific phobias and GAD are more likely to occur in older adults, social anxiety less frequent and panic disorders are less severe
  • Class - higher risk of anxiety, particularly PTSD associated with a lower income; higher psychological stress on the support; support
  • Gender - Women are twice as likely to be afflicted with the G.A.D, panic disorder, PTSD, and specific phobias than men but equally as likely to have OCD and social anxiety
    • Why? The sex differences may be explained by trauma (rape) and social cultural factors
36
Q

what is the connection between fight-or-flight mechanism and panic disorder?

A
37
Q

describe cognitive biases in anxiety (beck’s cognitive model)

A
38
Q

What evidence is there for the schema theory of anxiety?

A
39
Q

what is the problem with the diagnosis of a specific phobia?

A
  • very vague in the terms that they use- what is considered excessive? what do we mean with interfering with daily function?
40
Q

what are the suspected causes/ theories of specific phobias?

A
  • Psyhoanalytic theories - repressed id impulses
  • Fear conditioning - a neutral stimulus is paired with a frightening event
  • Evolutionary purpose - we are pre-wired to acquire certain phobias
  • Structures in the brain - key brain structures mediate fearful responding to phobic stimuli.
  • non-associative fear conditioning- argues that fear of a set of biologically relevant stimuli develop naturally after early encounters in childhood.
  • Disgust - some phobias may be associated with the emotion of disgust.
  • Multiple pathways - combination of the theories
  • different phobias have different causes
41
Q

describe the relationship between panic disorder and classical conditioning,

A
42
Q

Describe how some phobias form in relation to disgust?

A
43
Q

Describe how anxiety disorders are maintained?

A
  1. once the danger schemas are activated, appraisals are characterised by negative automatic thoughts about the danger. These thoughts reflect themes of physical, social or psychological catastrophes directly or indirectly involving the self.
  2. Biases in processing associated with schema maintain belief in negative automatic thoughts, assumptions and beliefs, by distorting interpretations in a manner that is consistent with dysfunctional beliefs and appraisals.
  3. Individuals typically reduce danger through their behavioural responses of avoidance or safety behaviours.
  4. These behaviours cause their own problems by intensifying anxiety symptoms and preventing disconfirmation of the belief in danger conditions.
44
Q

Describe the comorbidity of anxiety with other conditions

A
  • depression
  • other forms of anxiety
  • may be due to its components being found across different disorders.
45
Q

Define anxiety disorder

A

a disorder characterized by excessive or aroused state of feelings of apprehension, uncertainty or fear.

46
Q

Describe the common disorder phenoma that lead to anixrty-anxiety comorbidity

A
  • Physiological symptoms of panic - found in phobic stimuli reactions in phobias
  • Cognitive bias - information processing biases tend to cause anxious people to attend to threatening stimuli
  • Specific early experiences can be found in the etiology of a number of anxiety disrders - e.g childhood sexual abuse
47
Q

describe the psychoanalytical accounts of phobias.

A
  • Defense against the anxiety caused by repressed id impulses, and this fear became related to external events or situations that had a symbolic reference to the repressed id impulses ( a way of avoiding confrontation with more challenging life issues and difficulties)
  • ‘little Hans a fear of horses. Freud argued that the real reason was because of a repressed childhood conflict
  • however, little objective evidence to support this
48
Q

what are the cognitive theories of social anxiety disorder?

A
  • Posess negative information and interpretation bias (make exessive negative predictions about events) - this is evidenced by the higher rate at which people with social anxiety disorder to predict about negative future social events (Heindrics and Hoffman, 2001). They also interpret their ability to cope significantly less than others.
  • Find it difficult to process positive social feedback - this is likely to maintatin their dysfucntional beliefs have
  • a strong tendency to shift their attention inwards onto themselves and hir own anxiety responses during a social performance. This is known as self-focused attention (they believe that they may look as anxious as they feel inside). This prevents them objecivley analysing themselves. This also reinforces their dysfunctionsla thoughts.
  • indulge in post-event processing (rumination)
49
Q

What is the non-associative explanations of phobias (Poulton and Menzies, 2002)?

A
50
Q

What are negative automatic thoughts?

A

They are rapid, negative thoughts that occur outside the focus of immediate awareness although they are amenable to conscious. They represent the surface cognitive features of schema activation. They are appraisals or interpretations of events, and can be tied to a particular behaviour and affective reposne. Although they could be argued to cause anxiety, in the schema theory, they are considered to reflect cognitive mechanisms that modulate and maintain anxiety.

51
Q

what are the pros and cons of the psychoanalytical theories of phobias?

A

cons = no objective evidence to support these accounts

pros = insight can be drawn from symbolic interpretation of case histories provided by psychoanalysis

52
Q

describe how people with epanic disorder have ‘catatrophic misinterpretations of thier body sensations’

A
53
Q

Describe the beliefs and meta belifs in people with GAD

A
54
Q

what is the suffocation false alarm theory of panic?

A

Klein (1993) noticed that all the processes that induce panic (hyperventilation, breathing in excessive CO2) increase the levels of CO2 into the brain. He proposed that panic sufferers brains are particularly sensitive to co2 increases.

55
Q

What is Clarks cognitive model of panic?

A
56
Q

What is the diagnostic criteria for GAD

A
  1. Exessive anxiety or worry about two or more domains of activities on more days than not for 3 months +
  2. Associated with the following symptoms:
    • Physical symptoms (eg restlessness and muscle tension)
    • Behavioral symptoms - Accompanied by one or more of
      • marked avoidance events of possible negative outcomes
      • excessive time and effort spent preparing for events with negative outcomes
      • marked procrastination due to worry
      • repeated reassurance seeking behaviors due to worry
  3. The symptoms will cause impairments in social, occupational functioning.
57
Q

Describe classical conditioning and phobias.

A

Watson and Rayner (1920) - explains anxiety by conditioning accounts.

They paired a conditioned stimulus (rat) with a unconditioned stimulus (loud noise) which distressed Albert (the unconditioned response). After several pairings, Albert began to cry (the conditioned response) whenever the rat was introduced to the room.

there are some criticisms about the theory but it is thought to explain the origin of some phobias (i.e dental phobia)

58
Q

Prevalence of GAD

A
  • 5% lifetime prevalence
  • twice as common in woman than me
  • highly co-morbid (45%-98% with another anxiety disorder)
  • also comorbid with depression and anxiety dsorders
59
Q

What are the cognitive features associated anxiety?

A
  • Apprehension
  • fear
  • Intrusive thoughts of threat
  • Catastrophic bouts of worrying about possible negative outcomes
  • Uncontrollable flashbacks
60
Q

What are the main psychological theories associated with panic disorders?

A
61
Q

who proposed the two stage model of anxiety?

A

Mowrer (1960)

62
Q

who came up with the preparedness theory?

A

Siegelman, 1971

63
Q

Can panic be conditioned?

A
64
Q

what are the biological theories to the cause of phobias?

A
  • Evolution theories - This is the idea that some phobias are biologically pre-wired. It is supported by the ideas that we only seem to acquire phobias about a certain set if things and these phobias, a lot of the time have evolutionary significance. We rarely develop clinical phobias of life threatening that has appeared only recently in our phylogenic past. Having these phobias, in the past would have given us a selection advantage and allowed us to develop predispositions to fear stimuli that could aid us in survival (single man, 1971)
  • Amygdala theories - the idea that there is dysfunctional amygdala (part of the brain that is involved in the formation of memories to emotionally relevant stimuli) functioning in anxiety disorders. This is supported by the fact that there is a linear relationship between fear and amygdala activation. Also, notes that some phobias. cause different poses (ie blood injection phobia).
65
Q

what does the two-stage model of learning theory suggest?

A
  1. Person learns to associate stimulus with an aversive outcome resulting in a learnt fear response
  2. Person learns that by avoiding stimulus that evokes fear, they can reduce the fear and this asserts incentive for further avoidance.

Clinical psychology (8 decks)

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