Behavioural Aproaxh To Explaining Phobias

Question 1

What does the behavioural model suggest?

Answer 1

It sugggests that all behaviours including phobiaas can be learnt, and that people who have an abnormality can also learn negative behaviours.

Question 2

What is the two process model?

Answer 2

1) phobia is learnt via classical conditioning and or social learning
2) the phobia is then maintained via operant conditioning.

Question 3

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 3

Classical conditioning is when an association between two different stimuli get built up so that learning takes place. One stimulus would then produce the same response as another because they have been constantly presented at the same time. This could be how phobias develop, as the the stimulus that the person is afraid of, has been associated with another stimulus.

Question 4

What is a study if classical conditioning?

Answer 4

Watson and raynor conducted an experiment on a little baby called little Albert, to see if they could make him learn a phobia. They showed little albert a white rat, and he showed no reaction, he in fact tried to play with it a little bit (neutral stimulus). However Watson and raynor then banged two metal rods behind little alberts head if he tried to reach for the mouse, this is an unconditioned stimulus and caused little albert to cry ( unconditioned response )They did this 3 times over 2 weeks until every time he saw the white rat, he cried. (Conditioned stimulus and response)He also became afraid of white fluffy objects. ( generalisation )

Question 5

Evaluation classical conditioning

Answer 5

-Criticised as it was only conducted once and findings have not been repeated, making it unreliable. Could be questioned whether we would obtain the same results if we repeated the experiment when investigating if phobias are learnt via classical conditioning. Study also can’t be repeated due to ethics.
+King found that, after reviewing several cases, that children acquire phobias by encountering traumatic experiences with the phobic object
-Disadvantage - people don’t often have traumatic experience with phobic object to develop a phobia. For example people in car accident may not go on to develop a phobia of driving, or cars. Not a full explanation of how phobias develop. Some have a phobia without trauma.
Me
- Menzies criticised classical conditioning. He studied a sample of hydrophobic people and found that only 2% actually had a traumatic experience with water, meaning 98% didn’t have a traumatic experience and learnt it via CC. Other findings include that 50% of people with a dog phobia never had a tramauitc experience with the dog.

Question 6

What is social learning theory?

Answer 6

Based on observational learning where young children may observe someone reaction to an event and copy this behaviour. E.g. if a child sees someone scream whilst getting bitten by a dog then then they might copy that behaviour and proceed to become scared if dogs. Minneka found that when one monkey became scared of a snake, so did all the other in the cage.

Question 7

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 7

Learning through the consequences of one’s behaviour:

 - by avoiding the phobic object you feel rewarded which acts as a positive reinforcement, maintaining your phobia.
 - By avoiding phobic object you get the feeling that you avoided something horrific and that you reduced fear, in turn acting as negative reinforcement, maintaining the phobia

Question 8

Evaluation two step model

Answer 8

• Limited as it ignores other potential factors in what can cause phobias. The behavioural model focuses on the environment and learning whereas it would ignore all biological or evolutionary factors. Some people may have more genetic vulnerability than others, causing them to develop phobia more easily
• Social learning theory is successful in explaining the development of phobias in animals and young children but doesn’t explain how it develops for adults. Behavioural model is limited to young children and animals p
  + two step model is praised as it involves to clear steps as to why phobias are Lesrned and maintained.1) by classical conditioning or social learning 2) maintained my operant conditioning. Accurate overall process in how phobias are learnt