behavioural approach to phobias Flashcards
describe what a phobia is
strong irrational and persistent fear of a specific object or situation.
describe the emotional characteristic of phobias
-the object or situation almost always provokes immediate fear or anxiety
describe the behavioural characteristics of phobias
- avoidance: the phobic object ir situation is avoided.
- functioning: it interferes with normal functioning.
describe the cognitive
- fear recognised as “out of proportion”
- not helped by rational argument.
state the 3 behavioural explanation of phobia
behavioural apperoach has the assumption that humans are born with tabula rasa and all behaviour is learned from the enviornment.
classical conditioning
-classical conditioning assumes all behaviour is learned through association.
-unconditioned stimulus results in an unconditioned response
-US has a UR
-NS results in an UR
- CS results in CR
this model helps us learn new behaviours by associating them with some positive experience.
operate conditioning
-shows how behaviour is rewarded it is reinforced which means it is repeated. pleasant reward=positive reinforcement. avoiding something unpleasant =negative reinforcement,
social learning theory
-shows how behaviour is imitated by observing role models. Bandura showed this with his boob doll.
explain Morwers behaviourist explanation
suggested phobias were created by classical conditioning and maintained by operate conditioning.
-combo of two kinds of conditioning known as the two process model.
how did Watson and Ragnar show how phobia could be learned through classical conditioning and maintained through operate conditioning
- little Albert an infant with a fear of loud noises but mo previous fear of rats.
- was shown a white rat at the same time the experimenter created a loud noise
- little Albert soon became frightened of rats and other furry things.
operate conditioning then explains how phobia continues.
-the person avoids the phobic object or situation and gets satisfaction from avoiding it - negative reinforcement.
evaluation of the behavioural approach
- di nado found that 60% of people with dog phobias had been bitten by dogs(classical conditioning ) ( theory incomplete explanation has 40% hadn’t been bitten)-not everyone who is exposed to a phobic stimulus developed a phobia
- bandura used lab experiment to creat phobia of buzzers by participants watching others receive electric shocks associated with a buzzer. Bandura called this vicarious classical conditioning because it was learned by watching role models. ( part of SLT)
- di nerd suggests that some people have a genetic predisposition to phobias but it requires a stimulus for the phobia to develop. (part of the diathesis stress model). this is where the stress is the enviornment ( the behaviourism)and the diathesis is the genetic predesposioton.
- behaviourism doesnt explain why only some people develop phobias about some objects but not others. seligman has tried to explain this with an evolutionary theory as it was once adaptive to fear such things and so we have an evolutionary predesopsistion to fear such things.
what is the behavioural approach to treating phobias and explain it
-systematic desensitisation(joseph wolpe)
-1 stage relaxation- client taught muscle relaxation techquinies as its not possible to be relaxed and anxious at the same time
-stage 2- hierarchy: once relaxed client and therapist design a hierarchy of fear, give each step a rating.
stage 3:exposure: when client is systematically exposed to the fobic object each time with relaxation and a score.
stage4: client sees the score going down and reinforces them in overcoming it ( pos reinforcement)
stage 5: phobia is comepleted
how does systematic desensiatation use behaviourist principles.
it uses classical conditioning: the gradual exposure with no bad effect means the client associates the phobic object with feeling relaxed and confident.
operate conditioning as the scores going down acts as a form of positive reinforcement and so enable client to carry on.
explain flooding
extreme exposure immediately and for a period long enough for the fear reaction to disappear.
-client thigh relaxation techniques and learns to associate the phobic object with relaxation. the fear response is biological so the body creates stress hormones like coristol,but it doesnt last long so the idea is for the fear response to subside and for the client to associate the phobia with the feeling of calm relaxation.
evaluation of behaviourist approach to treating phobias
behavioural therapies only treat the symptoms not the cause of the phobia. this means the phobia may return once therapy is completed. classic case of little Hans and his phobia of horses ( thru psychoanalysis freud discovered his boy was afraid of his father and that fear had transferred onto horses )
-Only thru discovering the cause could the phobia be eliminated.
- However wold believed that treating symptoms enabled client to get on with their lives very quickly.
- Ohman found that SD is more effective with phobias based on personal experiences and not as much with those with an evolutionary predespotion like fear of dark n dangerous creatures.
- both SD and flooding requires big commitment by client for the therapy to be successful.
