Anxiety Disorders Flashcards
What is a phobia?
A persistent, disproportionate and irrational fear of a specific object or situation which is often maladaptive. The individual will recognise that the fear is groundless.
Where does the word phobia come from?
The Greek god Phobos who was fearless in battle.
What sort of reaction occurs when an individual comes into contact with a phobic object?
Panic attacks and the fight or flight response.
What are the three categories of phobias according to what book?
Specific phobia, social phobia and agoraphobia. According to the DSM-IV.
What is a specific phobia?
An intense irrational fear of a particular item or situation.
What are the three requirements to be diagnosed with a specific phobia?
- be excessive or unreasonable to the actual danger posed
- triggered immediately on exposure to the phobic object
- interfere with everyday functions (maladaptive)
When does a fear become a phobia?
When it begins to be maladaptive.
What percentage of the population have specific phobias?
10%
Are specific phobias more common in men or women?
Women.
What five subtypes of specific phobia are there?
- Animal
- Natural environment (heights, water)
- Blood/injection/injury
- Situational (aeroplanes, lifts, enclosed spaces)
- Atypical (vomiting, choking)
Which subtype of phobia has a different type of reaction and what?
Tend to faint instead of panic when exposed to blood/injections/injury.
What is the fight or flight response?
An automatic physiological response of the sympathetic nervous system in fearful situations that prepares the body to fight or flee. Physiological changes include increased heart rate, sweating, diversion of blood flow to skeletal muscles.
What is a social phobia?
An extreme fear of embarrassment or humiliation in social situations.
What two types of social phobia are there?
Specific situations and generalised social phobia.
What is a social phobia of a specific situation?
Examples include fear of using public toilets, public speaking, or eating in public. Panic attacks often occur.
What is generalised social phobia?
The phobia is less specific and involves many different types of social interactions. Such as fear of initiating conversations. speaking to authority figures, or attending parties.
When do social phobias tend to develop?
In late childhood or early adolescence.
What percentages of men and women are affected by social phobias?
11% of men and 15% of women.
What is agoraphobia?
A fear of crowded public transport and public places such as shopping centres.
How much of the population suffers from agoraphobia? Mainly men or women?
2-3%, the majority are women.
What two types of agoraphobia are there?
As a complication of a panic attack, and without panic attacks.
What is agoraphobia as a complication of a panic attack?
They are anxious about having a panic attack in a public place and being unable to escape or find help. In severe cases they will refuse to leave their home.
What is agoraphobia without panic attacks?
Less common than the other type, it is a spreading fear of the environment outside the safety of the persons home. The fear gradually increases in severity until eventually the patient can become housebound.
What are the three biological explanations of a phobia?
Genetic, vulnerability, preparedness theory.
What are the to studies to support the genetic expansion of phobias?
- Fyer found those with first degree relatives with a specific phobia were more likely to have one themselves.
- Torgesen investigated identical twins (100% same) and fraternal twins (50% same) where at least one pair was agoraphobic. There was a higher likelihood of the other twin having agoraphobia in the identical twins.
What is the vulnerability explanation of phobias?
Eysenck proposed some people are more easily frightened by fear provoking stimuli. The autonomic nervous system controls autonomic response, and some people are born with a high autonomic reactivity making them more likely to develop a phobia.
What is the preparedness explanation of phobias?
Seligman propose we develop phobias to to items and situations that were potential sources of danger to us thousands of years ago. Therefore we have an evolutionary and physiological predisposition to be sensitive to certain stimuli. There is an innate tendency to rapidly acquire phobias to potentially harmful items.
What does innate mean?
In-born; present at birth.
What is an alternative explanation for the genetic studies of phobias?
Social learning theory would explain that relatives would observe and imitate the behaviour displayed by their family members. This means it is difficult to untangle environmental and genetic factors in family studies.
Where does support for preparedness theory come from?
Conditioning studies on humans and animals in laboratory conditions. Ohman found humans are more likely to be condition to fear snakes (fear-relevant) than flowers (fear-irrelevant).
What is the study by Cook and Mineka on preparedness theory?
Monkeys readily acquire fears of toy snakes and crocodiles (with no previous exposure) but couldn’t be conditioned to fear a toy rabbit. This couldn’t be accounted for by prior learning, making preparedness theory a plausible explanation.
What is the issue with fears acquired under laboratory conditions?
They are easily removed by simple verbal instruction, meaning these fears are unlike phobias acquired in the real world.
How do behaviourists think phobias are learnt?
Classical conditioning. A person learns to fear a previously neutral stimulus by pairing it with a frightening event.
What is the two-process theory?
A phobia is learned through classical conditioning and maintained by operant conditioning. It is also known as avoidance conditioning.
How are phobias maintained by operant conditioning?
The person learns that their anxiety is reduced by avoiding the stimulus that causes their phobic reaction. This is an example of negative reinforcement.
What is the famous study for the behavioural explanation of phobias?
Little Albert (Watson and Rayner) was conditioned to fear white rats.
What is the issue with the Little Albert study?
It has been difficult to reproduce, especially with adults.
Is there empirical evidence to support the behaviourist explanation?
Yes - Little Albert.
Can all fears by induced in a laboratory?
No. Not all fears can be conditioned into someone.
What was Di Nardo’s behaviourist study?
60% of people with a fear of dogs could relate their fear to a frightening incident with a dog which offers some support for conditioning theory. However a number of people in a control group could recall an incident, but had not developed a fear.
What types of fears can’t behaviourists explain?
Fears that develop gradually (such as social phobias) cannot be traced back to a specific incident. Fears also occur when there has been no direct contact with the stimulus.
How would social learning theory explain fears of stimuli that the individual hasn’t come into contact with?
Phobias can be learned vicariously.
What is cognitive vulnerability?
Perceiving normal bodily functions (raised heartbeat) as threatening.
What causes cognitive vulnerability?
People who suffer from phobias tend to think in a distorted and catastrophic way. They think the worst.
What would cognitive psychologists say causes a fearful response?
The interpretation and appraisal of events. It is the interpretation that triggers the fear, not the event itself.
What two types of distorted appraisal are there?
- automatic negative thoughts
2. over-generalising; assuming that one bad experience means that it will be repeated in the future
What three factors do cognitive psychologists say develops a phobia and persists it?
- sensitisation - anxiety become associated with a stimulus so the presence of or thinking about it is enough to trigger anxiety
- avoidance - avoiding a stimulus become rewarding because anxiety diminishes
- negative self-talk/images - these include three distortions; over estimating a negative outcome, catastrophising, under-estimating ability to cope
What do cognitive psychologists say agoraphobics are hypersensitive to?
They are hypersensitive to spatial layouts and to being taken away from their caretaker. If access to the home or caretaker is blocked them fear is induced and the agoraphobic has an urgent need to return home.
What is hypersensitivity?
Excessively sensitive.
What is a schema?
A mental representation of the world, used to interpret information. If distorted, information will be perceived in negative and inaccurate ways.
What did Beck propose?
Agoraphobics poses latent fears of situations that might have been dangerous to a child but not to an adult, such as crowded shops and open places.
How do cognitive psychologists explain the onset and maintenance of social phobias?
Social phobias have developed schemas that include expectations that others will be negative and rejecting. They have become hypersensitive to picking up cues from others that they interpret negatively. They also expect their own behaviour will be unacceptable and will be rejected because of this. This makes them less able to socially interact creating a viscous cycle.
Does the cognitive approach have applications to the treatment of phobias?
Yes. It is a coherent theory with therapeutic applications. treatments have proved highly effective.
What is the link between the cognitive and behaviourist explanations for phobias?
Cognitive psychologists accept the acquisition of a fear through learning (conditioning) but still emphasise the persons own interpretations of events.
Behaviour is not always driven by cognition. Explain.
Evidence shows that cognitions can be driven/maintained by inappropriate behaviour such as avoidance.
How does psychodynamism explain phobias?
They occur when id impulses are repressed and anxiety is displaced onto another object or situation.
Define id.
An unconscious part of the personality that is present at birth and demands instant gratification.
What is the psychodynamic experiment for phobias?
Little Hans case study. Hans had a fear of horses, which was his displaced fear of his father.
How does Freud explain the Hans case study?
It is due to an unresolved childhood conflict. The ego had to displace his fear of his father with the use of defence mechanisms. Hans’ fear of his father came from the Oedipal complex.
What is the fear of spiders according to psychodynamism?
It is a defence of more threatening impulses of a sexual nature. Abraham proposed that spiders were a fear of sexual genitalia.
How would behaviourists explain Hans’ fear of horses?
When Hans was younger, age four, he witnessed an accident where a horse collapsed in the street. This greatly upset Hans, so he could have been classically conditioned after the incident to fear horses.
How does Freud’s theory of anxiety lack methodological rigour?
His theory’s are drawn from clinical case studies which are limited in number and subjectively interpreted.
What is obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)?
Obsession - anxiety provoking thought.
Compulsion - also referred to as rituals, an action performed to remove or reduce anxiety.
What does the DSM-IV say you have to be to be diagnosed with OCD?
It has to be causing considerable distress and interfering with normal everyday functioning.
How much of the population does OCD affect? Mainly men or women?
2%, equal numbers of men and women.
What age does OCD tend to occur?
Adolescence or early adulthood, but it can begin in childhood.
