Chapter 9A

Question 1

factors contributing to specific phobias

Answer 1

• biological
• psychological
• social

Question 2

specific phobia

Answer 2

a specific phobia is a disorder characterised by marked fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation often leading to avoidance behaviour

Question 3

exposure to a phobic stimulus can lead to..

Answer 3

exposure to a phobic stimulus typically triggers an acute stress response, such as the flight-fight-freeze response or panic attack

Question 4

Panic attack

Answer 4

A panic attack is a sudden onset of intense fear or terror often associated with feeling of impending doom

Question 5

biopsychosocial approach

Answer 5

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

Question 6

factors of biopsychosocial approach

Answer 6

• 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

Question 7

biological factors that contribute to a phobia

Answer 7

• GABA dysfunction
• Long term potention (LTP)

Question 8

GABA

Answer 8

GABA is the primary inhibitory neurotransmitter, making the neurons less likely
to fire, thereby calming the nervous system.

Question 9

GABA dysfunction

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

glutamate

Answer 10

• Glutamate enhances information transmission by making postsynaptic neurons more likely to fire
• Associated with enhanced learning and memory

Question 11

long term potentiation

Answer 11

refers to the long-lasting strength-ening of a synaptic connection, resulting in enhanced transmission across synapses.

Question 12

how does long term potentiation effect phobias

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

psychological factors that contribute to a phobia

Answer 13

• behavioural models including precipitation by classical conditioning and perpetuation by operant conditioning
• cognitive models including memory bias which includes change bias and consistency bias

Question 14

the behavioural model

Answer 14

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

Question 15

precipitation by classical condition

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

perpetuation by operant condition

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

cognitive models

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

memory bias

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

two types of memory bias

Answer 19

• change bias
• consistency bias

Question 20

change bias

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

consistency bias

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

catastrophic thinking

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

social factors that contribute to phobia

Answer 23

• specific environmental triggers
• stigma around seeking treatment

Question 24

specific environmental triggers

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

stigma around seeking treatment

Answer 25

stigma makes treatment less likely to be sought. For example,
individuals with a specific phobia may feel embarrassed or ashamed of their specific phobia, whether
it is something that society would find ‘normal’ such as a fear of heights (acrophobia) or ‘silly’ such
as a fear of cheese (turophobia). Since people with phobias can continue to function normally in the
absence of phobic stimulus, other people may falsely assume that phobias are less severe than other
mental health conditions which can further stigmatise those that experience phobias. Hence, some
people engage in avoidance behaviours rather than actively seeking social support or treatment as
they do not want to be judged.