behavioural explanations for phobias

Question 1

intro

Answer 1

Behaviourism
• All behaviour is learnt via interaction with our environment.
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning

Orval Mowrer (1947)-phobias are learnt and maintained through operant and classical conditioning-two process model

Question 2

classical conditioning:acquisition

Answer 2

Phobias are acquired through an association.
• Classical conditioning.
• NS is associated with an US
• Produces a CS and CR.
• Watson & Raynor (1920) - Little Albert
• Conditioned Little Albert to be afraid of the white rat.- Every time Albert went to reach for rat they would make loud banging behind Albert.

Question 3

examples of classical conditioning

Answer 3

• Being bitten (UCS) produces fear (UCR)
• Dog (NS) associated with being bitten (UCS)
• Dog (CS) produces fear (CR)

Another example:
• Social situations after having a panic attack when out.

Question 4

stimulus generalisation

Answer 4

scared of associated things in general eg rat-white fluffy things

Question 5

operant conditioning:maintenance

Answer 5

-avoidance of/ escape from stimulus

-rewarding->negative reinforcement

-behaviour that is rewarded is repeated/learned

Question 6

strength-application to therapy

Answer 6

A strength of the behavioural explanation is its application to therapy.
The behaviourist ideas have been used to develop treatments, including systematic desensitisation and flooding.
Systematic desensitisation helps people to unlearn their fears, using the principles of classical conditioning, while flooding prevents people from avoiding their phobias and stops the negative reinforcement from taking place.
Consequently, these therapies have been successfully used to treat people with phobias, providing further support for the effectiveness of the behaviourist explanation.

Question 7

strength-research support for classical conditioning

Answer 7

Watson & Rayner (1920) demonstrated the process of classical conditioning in the formation of a phobia in Little Albert, who was conditioned to fear white rats.
However, since this was a case study, it is difficult to generalise the findings to other children or even adults due to the unique nature of the investigation.

Question 8

weakness-biological preparedness

Answer 8

There is a claim that the behavioural approach may not provide a complete explanation of phobias.
For example, Bounton (2007) highlights the fact that evolutionary factors could play a role in phobias, especially if the avoidance of a particular stimulus (e.g. snakes) could have increased change of survival for our ancestors.
Consequently, evolutionary psychologists suggest that we are predisposed to some phobias (e.g. snakes and heights) as they are in fact innate, rather than learnt, as such phobias acted as a survival mechanism for our ancestors.
This innate predisposition to certain phobias is called biological preparedness (Seligman,
1971) and casts doubt on the two-process model since it suggests that there is more to phobias than learning.

Question 9

weakness-biological preparedness

Answer 9

There is a claim that the behavioural approach may not provide a complete explanation of phobias.
For example, Bounton (2007) highlights the fact that evolutionary factors could play a role in phobias, especially if the avoidance of a particular stimulus (e.g. snakes) could have increased change of survival for our ancestors.
Consequently, evolutionary psychologists suggest that we are predisposed to some phobias (e.g. snakes and heights) as they are in fact innate, rather than learnt, as such phobias acted as a survival mechanism for our ancestors.
This innate predisposition to certain phobias is called biological preparedness (Seligman,
1971) and casts doubt on the two-process model since it suggests that there is more to phobias than learning.

Question 10

weakness-avoids cognitive aspects to phobias

Answer 10

Another limitation of the two process model is that there are cognitive aspects to phobias that cannot be explained in a behaviourist framework and are therefore ignored.
An alternative explanation for phobias is the cognitive approach, which proposes that phobias may develop as the consequence of irrational thinking.
For example a person in a lift may think “I could become trapped and suffocate (irrational thought), which could lead to extreme anxiety and trigger a phobia.
The value of this particular explanation is that it has led to cognitive therapies such as CBT, which are in some cases, such as social phobia (Engels et al., 1993) more successful that behaviourist treatments.