Behaviourist Approach To Phobias Explanation And Tretament Flashcards
What are the symptoms of phobias
1.fear of stimulus
2.irrational beliefs
3.avoidance of the stimulus
What is the Two process model
1.Acquired through classical conditioning
Neutral stimulus+unconditioned stimulus produces a conditioned stimulus with a conditioned response
2.maintained through operant conditioning through avoiding contact with the feared thing negative emotions removed leads to negative reinforcement.
What is the evidence for the two process model? Also outline further evidence for this?
Through pairing the white rat with a loud banging noise Albert began to fear the rat showing evidence for phobia being learned through conditioning.
- Barlow and Durand found that 50% of participants could recall the event that caused their driving phobia many had not drove since which supports classical conditioning
A03 for the behaviourist approach to phobia
- Not all phobias are learned through traumatic events some may be genetically determined
What is one treatment for phobias?
Flooding - works through preventing the patient from avoiding the feared stimulus, this leads to association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus to be removed, high levels of stress can also not be maintained leading them to subside
What is another treatment for phobias
Systematic desensitisation- 3 steps
-build a hierarchy of fear from least feared to most feared
-develop techniques to deal with the dreaded stimulus,such as relaxation techniques
-exposure to the object is gradual where they learn the feared object is harmless where the conditioned stimulus no longer causes the conditioned response
What is support for flooding.
Kaplan and Tobin-65% had no symptoms of a specific phobia 4 years after the treatment
Support for systematic desensitisation
Ost-90% of patients treated with systematic desensitisation improved or completely recovered 4 years after the treatment
