Benett-Levy And Marteau Flashcards
Alternative Evidence of Bennett-levy and Marteau
Nesse and Williams conducted a study on laboratory monkeys, they split them into two groups and showed one group videos of monkeys afraid of fear-relevant objects such as snakes and fear-irrelevant objects such as flowers, they found that monkeys developed fear towards the fear-relevant objects and not to the fear-irrelevant objects, suggesting that innate preparedness is the reason that they had a readiness towards snakes. These findings cannot be generalised to humans as monkeys are more simpler than humans and does not account for individual differences which results in people having phobias of fear irrelevant objects such as buttons.
Óhman and Soares 1998, conducted a study giving participants an electric shock whilst exposing them to fear-irrelevant and fear-relevant stimuli finding that they became conditioned quicker with fear-relevant stimuli, suggesting that fear is more readily associated with some stimuli than others.
Watson and Raynor- Little Albert was shown a white rat, white rabbit and other white fluffy animals/objects, he was again shown this with a loud noise, he began to associate white fluffy objects with the noise and developed a phobic response to becoming afraid, generalising this to fear irrelevant objects, he became afraid of santa’s beard. this study shows that individual differences occur in the acquisition of phobia’s and develops Bennett-Levy and Marteau’s study through Classical conditioning
Context of Bennett-levy and Marteau
With reference to the context of Bennett-Levy and Marteau, Seligman 1971 had influenced their study as he had proposed that phobias were innate, by the fact that our ancestors had to survive by being afraid of certain animals, this is a readiness called ‘preparedness’.
Research also shows that people are more likely to be fearful of fear provoking characteristics, also, that people do not need to have a negative experience with an animal to have a phobia for example fearing snakes without being bitten by one.
Hinde proposed the predisposition called the ‘discrepancy principle’ where humans are more likely to fear animals that are different to them in form, for example having 8 legs as does a spider. Instinctively frightened to characteristics such as different movement, slithers and scurries.
Mineka et al (1980) conducted a study on monkeys finding that the wild monkeys were fearful of real, model and toy snakes where laboratory monkeys showed only a mild response except for when the snakes had movement, they showed fear similar to the wild monkeys which shows the innate preparedness towards the characteristics of the snake.
Aim
Procedures of Bennett-levy and Marteau
113 ppts at a health centre, this was opportunity based sampling
64 ppts. 34f and 30m, average age of 35.5 questionnaire 1
49 ppts. 25f and 24m, average age of 35.1 questionnaire 2
They were told to imagine that none of the animals in the photographs were harmful, although some included Jellyfishes and Snakes.
Questionnaire 1 regarding fear and avoidance
Fear on a 3 point Likert scale 1-not afraid - 3-very afraid
Avoidance on a 5 point Likert scale, 1- enjoy being near and 5- further than 6ft away.
To get an estimate of the animals which cause phobias.
Questionnaire two asked questions regarding perceptual characteristics, ugliness, sliminess, speediness, sudden movement. On a 3 point Likert scale, this went from not, quite to very. On all of the 29 animals.
After answering each question are the participants had an informal interview with the researching discussing the results from the questionnaire and their perceptions of the animals. To gain qualitative data.
Findings and conclusions of Bennett-levy and Marteau
Bl and m first calculated the mean ratings from both questionnaires on phobias and characteristics, which asked about the same animal species.
The three highest mean ratings for Fear- rats 2.08, jellyfish 1.81, spiders 1.64
Rats were feared the most, in the informal interviews it was found that they were perceived as more harmful, despite all animals being labelled as harmless, the reason for this was infectious, and therefore ppts mean rating for avoiding rats was 3.90.
Correlation between animals with greater discrepancy, those who were ugly and slimy were more feared and avoided. For example the cockroach whose mean rating for ugliness was 2.53, it’s mean rating for avoidance was 3.25 as second to the rat.
There was only one significant difference between genders, men were more likely to approach 10 species than females, measured through their ‘nearness’ ratings.
Findings suggest that we do have innate preparedness for specific phobias, rather than having a preparedness to fear specific animals, we are born with a readiness to fear certain perceptual characteristics. Appearance differences, show that humans are more likely to fear something of difference to human form.
Threatening properties different to humans such as sudden movement or speediness elicit fear however animals like Lizards are not feared and this study did not account for the individual differences where animals that we do not fear with theses fear provoking characteristics.
Evaluation of the methodology of Bennett-levy and Marteau
Bennett-Levy and Marteau, used two questionnaires and informal interviews for their study, the questionnaires allow data which is easy to analyse and requires little time, however a weakness of questionnaires is that it is via self-report and participants may not be truthful but answer what they think is desirable to researchers.
Questionnaires ignore the qualitative aspect of phobias.
Bennett-Levy and Marteau, made up for this through their informal interviews, they could get the emotional significance of certain characteristics however the informal interviews can be difficult to analyse and time consuming.
Ethical considerations, informed consent was given, as participants answered a questionnaire knowing what the intended use was they were not deceived and this stopped them from being angry about it being used for psychological research.
However Bennett-levy and Marteau breached the protection from harm ethical guideline as participants may have been distressed through the interviews and participating in the questionnaires which queried about their phobias.
Validity, one questionnaire per a participant meant that their were no demand characteristics in the instance that participants hadn’t guessed what the researchers were looking for, Whereas they provided genuine answers.
Strength, the participants were representative of the population through the equal use of both genders however the sample was an opportunity sample so researchers may have chosen participants who they perceive will do well in the study.
Weakness, the validity is questionable as the participants were not asked about all characteristics about animals, such as hairiness and aggressiveness.
