Anxiety Flashcards
4 parts to anxiety
Emotional
Cognitive
Physiological
Behavioural
Emotional part to anxiety
Fear Dread Panic Frustration Disappointment Anger Sadness Depression
Cognitive part to anxiety
Thoughts and worries that often take the form of what if questions
‘What if I am not good enough?”
Physiological part to anxiety
Increased heart rate Shortness of breath Tight chest Dizziness Weakness Tingling legs Feeling faint Muscle tension Headaches Tension in face and head Lump in throat Nausea or other stomach discomfort Feeling hot Sweating Blushing
Behavioural part to anxiety
Reduced performance due to anxiety
Avoidance
DSM-5 criteria for GAD
The presence of excessive worry or anxiety about a variety of topics, events or activities which occurs more often than not for at least 6 months and is clearly excessive
The worry experienced is very challenging to control
The anxiety is accompanied by at least 3 of the following symptoms
• Edginess or restlessness
• Tiring easily, more fatigued than usual
• Impairment of concentration or feeling as though the mind goes blank
• Irritability
• Increased muscle aches or soreness
• Difficulty sleeping, trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, restlessness at night, unsatisfying sleep
Advantages to diagnostic disorders in anxiety
- Lots of studies support the existence of different conditions at least to some extent
- Gives medical professionals a language for communication
Classical conditioning of phobias
Ost (1987) some phobias appear to be learned via classical conditioning where a phobic stimulus is paired with a frightening event
Little Albert
Watson & Rayner (1920)
Conditioned a little boy to be scared of a white rat by making a sound that made him scared while presenting the rat
Bagby (1992) waterfall
Girl developed a phobia of water after getting trapped between some rocks by a stream with a waterfall overhead. The waterfall covered her in water, and she thought she would never be able to get out
Jacobson et al. (1995) chemotherapy
Conditioned fear and nausea in response to lemon-lime Kool-Aid after repeated pairings of the beverage to the chemotherapy treatment the group were undergoing
Critique of learning theory for phobias
Some phobias are not conditioned and are learned through modelling
Many people with phobias cannot recall a traumatic event which caused them to become phobic
Not everyone who has something traumatic happen to them develop a phobia
Doesn’t explain the phenomenon of incubation
Incubation
Under certain conditions exposure to a fear provoking conditioned stimulus results in sustained growth of fear even when the presentations are unreinforced
Eysenck (1967)
Modelling of phobias
Some phobias develop after seeing someone else show a fear of an object or situation
Children copied the anxious behaviour of their parents prior to a spelling test (Burstein et al., 2010)
Children imitated the calm or anxious behaviours shown towards animals by their peers (Broeren et al., 2011)
Rhesus monkeys have also been found to acquire fears by observing fearful behaviours in other monkeys (Mineka & Cook, 1986)
Negative information and phobias
Phobias can result from negative information given about an object or situation (Rachman, 2002)
Children who were given frightening information about an animal such as ‘it can jump in your throat’ were more fearful than those who were given neutral or positive information
Parents play an important role in creating fear in children by passing on negative information about animals (Remmerswaal et al., 2010)
