Chapter 9A Flashcards
contributing factors to phobia
factors contributing to specific phobias
- biological
- psychological
- social
specific phobia
a specific phobia is a disorder characterised by marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation often leading to avoidance behaviour
exposure to a phobic stimulus can lead to..
exposure to a phobic stimulus typically triggers an acute stress response, such as the flight-fight-freeze response or panic attack
Panic attack
A panic attack is a sudden onset of intense fear or terror often associated with feeling of impending doom
biopsychosocial approach
the biopsychosocial model is a model developed to illustrate how biological, psychological and social factors interact to influence and individuals mental wellbeing in a holistic manner
factors of biopsychosocial approach
- Biological factors relate to physiological function
Examples include: genetic predisposition to illness, substance use/abuse and its effect on brain functioning - Psychological factors relate to cognitive and affective function. They are experiences with a person mind
Examples include: learning and memory, though patterns, attitudes, emotional states - Social risk factors arise from and individuals interaction with others and their external environment
Examples include: relationships with family, friends and community, support services, education etc
biological factors that contribute to a phobia
- GABA dysfunction
- Long term potention (LTP)
GABA
GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, making the neurons less likely
to fire, thereby calming the nervous system.
GABA dysfunction
GABA dysfunction is the failure to produce, release, or receive the correct amount of GABA needed to regulate neural transmission. This makes individuals more vulnerable to anxiety as it limits the nervous system’s ability to counterbalance the excitatory effects of Glutamate, and may result in the sustained activation of the flight-or-fight-or-freeze response.
glutamate
- Glutamate enhances information transmission by making postsynaptic neurons more likely to fire
- Associated with enhanced learning and memory
long term potentiation
refers to the long-lasting strength-ening of a synaptic connection, resulting in enhanced transmission across synapses.
how does long term potentiation effect phobias
LTP
can strengthen the neurological link between the phobic stimulus and the fear/anxiety response.
For a conditioned fear/emotional responses, LP occurs in the amygdala. Every time a phobic
stimulus is encountered, the neural signals representing the phobic stimulus and those representing
the fear response are repeatedly co-activated, and the synapses are strengthened through LTP.
This increases the transmission of fear information across the svnapse and across relevant neural
pathways, hence strengthening the phobic response.
psychological factors that contribute to a phobia
- behavioural models including precipitation by classical conditioning and perpetuation by operant conditioning
- cognitive models including memory bias which includes change bias and consistency bias
the behavioural model
according to behavioural models, phobias are learned through experience and then acquired, maintained or modified by the environment or environmental consequences. in particular the two factor learning theory proposes that a specific phobia may be precipitated thorough classical condition and perpetuated by operant condition
precipitation by classical condition
this is where a neutral stimulus (NS) with no
particular significance becomes, by association, a sign of impending fear or threat. Although
classical conditioning typically involves repeated associations, it may successfully occur after a
single pairing if the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is significantly traumatic or intense.
perpetuation by operant condition
conditioning: after acquisition through classical conditioning, a
specific phobia may be maintained and perpetuated by operant conditioning.
Avoidance
behaviours are strengthened as they lead to minimising unpleasant feelings of fear and anxiety.
Therefore these avoidance behaviours associated with phobia are negatively reinforced.
cognitive models
cognitive models look at how people think about the object or situation they fear and events related to it. They suggest that people often create their own problems by having cognitive biases, which means they make mistakes in thinking and judgment. One common type of thinking error is memory bias.
memory bias
This refers to distoring present knowledge by feelings and memorys of the past, it’s when someone has selective memory. This happens because memory is not perfect—it’s reconstructed. As a result, we often focus more on the negative experiences with something that causes fear (a phobic stimulus) and overlook or forget the positive or neutral experiences with it.
two types of memory bias
- change bias
- consistency bias
change bias
This happens when we remember an experience and exaggerate the difference between how we felt or what we knew back then and what we know now. As a result, the fear of the phobia becomes much bigger than it actually should be.
consistency bias
is when memories of past experiences are distorted or changed to fit what is presently known or believed. An object that elicits fear will influence and reconstruct
our memories in a way that incorporates the fear object.
catastrophic thinking
is a thinking style which involves overestimating, exaggerating, or modifying
an object/situation and predicting the worst possible outcome. It causes us to experience heightened
feelings of helplessness and underestimate our ability to cope. It further results in consistent
avoidance behavior regarding our phobic stimulus.
social factors that contribute to phobia
- specific environmental triggers
- stigma around seeking treatment
specific environmental triggers
are direct, negative, and traumatic experiences with a specific
stimulus at some time in the past, leading to that stimulus triggering a fear response in the present.
The more traumatic the stimulus is for an individual, the more likely it is that a phobia will develop.
However, individual differences explain why people who experience the same event will not develop
the same phobia to the stimulus.