Behavioural, Emotional And Cognitive Characteristics Of Phobias

Question 1

Behavioural symptoms phobias

Answer 1

Phobic stimulus- panic(crying, screaming or running away) - avoidance(doesn’t do certain things) or endurance( confronts the phobia even when experiencing high anxiety)

Question 2

Emotional characteristics of phobias

Answer 2

Anxiety: can be long term, this prevents the sufferer from relaxing
Fear: fear is immediate
It is an extremely unpleasant response that we feel when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus

Question 3

Cognitive characteristics of phobias

Answer 3

Selective attention: phobic stimulus is hard to look away from
Irrational beliefs: will hold irrational beliefs in relation to the phobic stimulus
Cognitive distortions:
The sufferers perception of the stimuli is distorted.

Question 4

Behaviourist explanations for phobias

Answer 4

See phobias as learnt behaviours, acquired through classical conditioning, operant conditioning of social learning

Question 5

Classical conditioning: KEY STUDY

Answer 5

Watson & Rayner- conditioned a baby boy known as Little Albert to fear white rats. For several weeks, Albert played happily with a rat showing no fear, one time the experiments struck a metal bar when he was playing with the rat, he was frightened by the sound, this was then repeated and he developed an intense fear of white rats

Question 6

Operant conditioning

Answer 6

Refers to learning to behave in certain ways because the behaviour is reinforced by some sort of positive outcome or removal or avoidance of something negative. Avoidance maintains the fear and preserves the phobia, frequent contact with a phobic object may reveal that is harmless

Question 7

Two process theory

Answer 7

Phobias are acquired through classical conditioning but are then maintained through operant conditioning