Chapter 13: Specific Phobia Part 1

Question 1

What is stress?

Answer 1

A state of physiological and psychological arousal produced by internal or external stressors that are perceived by the individual as challenging or exceeding their ability or resources to cope.

Question 2

What is anxiety?

Answer 2

A state of physiological arousal associated with feelings of apprehension, worry or uneasiness that something wrong or something unpleasant is about to happen.

• It is normal to experience anxiety in certain situations, which usually occurs for only a limited time
• In everyday life, anxiety tends to be an adaptive response

Question 3

How can a severe and mild anxiety responses be useful?

Answer 3

• Severe anxiety responses can be very useful in the short-term to deal with threatening, dangerous or emergency situations.
• Physiologically, it is like a flight-flight-freeze response and therefore makes us more alert and our reaction faster.
• Mild to moderate levels of anxiety can also make us more alert and improve our ability to cope.

Question 4

What are the characteristics of severe anxiety and what does it indicate?

Answer 4

Severe anxiety is generally accompanied by intense physiological sensations and responses, such as shortness of breath, sweating, trembling, nausea, stomach cramps, dizziness, feelings of suffocating, feelings of losing control and/or feelings of impending doom, depending on the stimulus and the individual involved.
-Experiencing severe anxiety can indicate the presence of anxiety disorder

Question 5

What is an anxiety disorder?

Answer 5

A group of mental disorders that are characterised by chronic feelings of anxiety, distress, nervousness and apprehension or fear about the future, with a negative effect.

Question 6

What is a phobia characterised by?

Answer 6

Excessive or unreasonable fear of a particular object or situation (the person usually recognises this).

• Causes significant anxiety and distress, and interferes with everyday functioning
• Is considered a diagnosable disorder

Question 7

Describe how fear responses differ from someone who has a phobia:

Answer 7

• Fear is a rational response when confronted by some things or when in certain situations.
• A fear response by someone with a phobia is typically out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the object or situation.
• There is also a compelling desire to avoid the object or situation. Sometimes even the thought of the feared stimulus is enough to cause a phobic reaction.

Question 8

What is a phobic stimulus?

Answer 8

The specific object or situation producing the fear associated with a phobia.

Question 9

What is a specific phobia disorder characterised by?

Answer 9

Irrational fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation, often leading to avoidance behaviour.
Examples:
-Animal (Eg. Dogs)
-Situation (E.g Public speaking)
-Natural environment (Eg. Heights )
-Blood-injection-injury (Eg. Needles)

Question 10

How do people with specific phobia disorders react to phobic stimuli?

Answer 10

• Triggers an acute stress response involving physiological changes like those of the flight-flight-freeze response
• Sometimes the reaction is so intense it takes the form of a panic attack
• Fear also results in avoidance behaviour. Someone with a phobia will organise their life around avoiding the stimulus (Eg. Catching a train to avoid flying)

Question 11

What is a panic attack?

Answer 11

A period of sudden onset of intense fear or terror, often associated with feelings of impending doom.

• Physiological changes (Eg. Shortness of breath, pounding heart)
• Psychological changes (Eg. Feelings of losing control or dying)

Question 12

What is phobic anxiety also called and what is it?

Answer 12

Anticipatory anxiety, which is the gradual rise in anxiety as a person thinks about or anticipates being exposed to the phobic stimulus in the future.
-For someone with a phobia, this can be incapacitating

Question 13

Describe how GABA is a biological contributing factor in relation to specific phobias:

Answer 13

• Some people experience the anxiety associated with phobias because the neurotransmission of GABA becomes dysfunctional
• There may be a failure to produce, release or receive the correct amount of GABA needed to regulate neuronal transmission in the brain.
• GABA dysfunction can, therefore, result in low levels of GABA in the brain, as shown by studies of people with aspecific phobia (and other anxiety disorders)

Question 14

Describe how GABA and glutamate are like traffic lights regulating neuronal activity in the brain:

Answer 14

• GABA and glutamate are like traffic lights regulating neuronal activity in the brain.
• GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and makes receiving neurons less likely to fire. It is like a red traffic light for the excitatory neurotransmitters that contribute to anxiety.
• Glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter and makes receiving neurons more likely to fire. It is like a green traffic light for excitatory neurotransmitter and makes receiving neurons more likely to fire. It is a green traffic light for excitatory activity.

Question 15

List the 3 biological factors of specific phobia:

Answer 15

• GABA neurotransmitter dysfunction
• Role of stress response
• Long-term potentiation

Question 16

Describe the role of the stress response as a biological contributing factor to specific phobias:

Answer 16

-Because there is a perceived threat or impending harm at the sight or thought of a phobic stimulus, the flight-fight-freeze response is activated (Increased HR, BP, perspiration ect.)

Question 17

What is the psychological component of the response to a phobic stimulus?

Answer 17

Feelings of apprehension worry or uneasiness.

Question 18

What is a physiological component of the response to a phobic stimulus?

Answer 18

Is like the physiological response to a stressor.

Question 19

When can phobic anxiety become problematic in relation to stress responses?

Answer 19

Phobic anxiety becomes problematic and especially non-adaptive when the stress response triggered in the absence of any real threat or danger.

Question 20

When is a stress response triggered for a person with a specific phobia and how can it be problematic?

Answer 20

Their response to a stimulus is triggered by exposure, or anticipated exposure, to objects or situations perceived to be dangerous.
-Can be problematic as their levels of anxiety tend to be inflated or excessive because their perception of a threat is unreasonable and out of proportion to what it should be.

Question 21

What is the severity and persistence of a stress response of someone with a specific phobia and how can classical conditioning be involved?

Answer 21

• Is often severe and can persist this high level for at least as long as the exposure to the phobic stimulus.
• An excessive stress response can become ‘paired’ with phobic stimuli through classical conditioning processes, setting it in place as a learned process that will inevitably occur whenever a phobic stimulus is encountered.

Question 22

Describe how long-term potentiation is a biological contributing factor for specific phobias:

Answer 22

• It is likely that long-term potentiation contributed to the development and maintenance of Little Albert’s specific phobia of furry objects.
• Long-term potentiation is believed to play an important role in the learning and memory of fear by strengthening synaptic connections in the neural pathway formed during the learning process, resulting in enhanced or more effective synaptic transmission within the pathway.
• As with other learning, long-term potentiation can therefore neurologically strengthen the association between a phobic stimulus and a fear or anxiety response through its activity at the synapse.
• The more the connection is strengthened, the more relevant the neural pathway is strengthened, increasing the efficiency in transferring fear info along the pathway and decreasing the likelihood that what has been learned will be forgotten.

Question 23

List the 2 psychological contributing factors of specific phobias:

Answer 23

• Classical and operant conditioning

- Cognitive bias (memory bias, catastrophic thinking)

Question 24

What do behavioural models say about phobias and specific phobias? What was this two-part process originally called?

Answer 24

Phobias are learned through experience and may be acquired, maintained or modified by environmental consequences such as rewards and punishments.

• Specific phobia may be precipitated through classical conditioning and perpetuated through operant conditioning.
• Originally called Two-Factor Learning Theory

Question 25

Describe precipitation by classical conditioning as a psychological (behavioural) contributing factor of specific phobias:

Answer 25

• Stimulus with no particular significance (neutral or unconditioned) becomes, by association, a sign of impending threat, danger or some unpleasant event (conditioned stimulus)
• Innate naturally occurring fear response (UCR) becomes a conditioned fear response (CR)
• Stimulus generalisation to other similar stimuli may also occur

Question 26

Describe perpetuation through operant conditioning as a psychological (behavioural) contributing factor of specific phobias:

Answer 26

• A phobia can be maintained and therefore perpetuated through operant conditioning.
• Avoidance reduces or removes the unpleasant feelings of fear and anxiety, so avoidance is negatively reinforced
• In the future, any response that reduces or removes fear or anxiety will also be negatively reinforced. Consequently, any avoidance response to any phobic stimulus will continue to be reinforced through operant conditioning.
• Operant conditioning can also contribute to the acquisition of a phobia.