DEVELOPMENT OF SPECIFIC DISORDER: CONTRIBUTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

Question 1

CONTRIBUTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS: BEHAVIOURAL MODEL (CC + OC)

• Maintenance through OC
• Avoidance = negative reinforcement (increasing avoidance behaviour to REMOVE anxiety)
• e.g. child and the dentist

Answer 1

• Phobias are learnt through CC
• Phobias are maintained through OC
  CLASSCIAL CONDITIONING
  = Before conditioning
  = During conditioning
  = After conditioning
  OPERANT CONDITIONING (Behaviour maintained)
  = A (antecedent/discriminative)
  = B (behaviour)
  = C (consequence)

Question 2

CONTRIBUTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS: BEHAVIOURAL MODEL (CC + OC)
* Criticisms of this theory

Answer 2

CC
= doesn’t explain why others develop phobias for objects or situations in which they have never encountered
OC
= Observational learning may play a role in developing phobias in these circumstances

Question 3

CONTRIBUTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS: COGNITIVE MODEL

• Cognitive Biases
• Cognitive biases - memory bias
• Cognitive biases - catastrophic thinking

Answer 3

• The psychological result of perception, learning and reasoning
• May pair faulty reasoning and rationale with fearful stimuli from the environment
• Cognitive bias: may lead to inaccurate judgement or illogical interpretation of a situation

Cognitive biases
* Memory bias
= Error that may ether enhance or impair the recall
= More likely to remember negative information
* Catastrophic thinking
= Individual repeatedly overestimates the potential dangers of an object or event and assumes the worst
= Lead to heightened levels of distress and anxiety

Question 4

CONTRIBUTING PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS: PSYCHODYNAMIC MODEL (FREUD)

Answer 4

• Phobias develop due to unresolved conflicts that arise
• This occurs during the phallic stage of a child’s development
• if unable to successfully deal with this conflict = anxiety is displaced to a situation/object that is less irrelevant
• To overcome this = psychoanalysis is necessary. A person attempts to resolve these conflicts