Key Question💚 Flashcards
What is your key question for Learning Theories?
Should airline companies offer treatment programmes to passengers with a fear of flying?
Describe your key issue and explain why it is important in today’s society
Fears can develop into phobias if the fear is marked and persistent and an immediate anxiety response is provoked upon exposure. The object or situation is also excessively avoided and symptoms are present for at least six months.
Fear of fiying is known as aerophobia. The most common reasons for aerophobia is crashing, not being in control or a fear of the flight being hijacked. Following the 9/11 terror attacks in New York, US airlines noticed a drastic decline in passenger numbers, while road use increased. Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, a psychologist specialising in risk
behaviour, estimated that an additional 1595 Americans died in car accidents the year after the
9/11 terror attacks, likely due to people choosing to drive rather than fly. Therefore, it would seem
that flying is a safer form of travel, particularly for long distances,
Fear of flying is an important issue because air travel in so common in today’s society and is often unavoidable. Many people have to travel by plane regularly for work, leisure or to visit family members abroad. A fear of flying would therefore prevent people from working or seeing family.
Brief recap of classical conditioning
Classical conditioning proposes that behaviour is learnt through the pairing stimuli that over time produce a conditioned response.
Evidence: Pavlov, Watson & Rayner
Brief recap of operant conditioning
Operant conditioning proposes that behaviour is learnt through
reinforcements and punishments.
Evidence: Skinner
Brief recap of social learning theory
Social Learning Theory proposes that behaviour is learnt through observation, modelling and imitation.
Evidence: Bandura
How does Classical Conditioning explain a fear of flying?
Classical Conditioning would suggest that a fear of flying develops due to pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus, to create a conditioned response. For example, a person may develop a fear of flying due to having experienced turbulence (unconditioned stimulus) on a flight before, which would cause them to feel fear (unconditioned response). Prior to having experienced turbulence, flying would have been a neutral stimulus. The person then learns to associate flying with turbulence so the next time they fly they may also have a similar fear response. Flying therefore becomes the conditioned stimulus, creating a conditioned response.
Explain how Operant Conditioning can explain a fear of flying.
For example, when someone has aerophobia, by not flying they reduce their anxiety which acts as a negative reinforcement. Alternatively, when someone experiences a fear of flying, they may receive attention which acts as a positive reinforcement.
Explain how Social Learning Theory can explain a fear of flying.
For example, a child may learn to
fear flying if they observe their
parents or role model to have a
fear of flying. (observation, modelling, imitation)
Explain how flooding therapy could be used to treat fear of flying.
The idea is based upon biological principles that if an individual experiences something fearful, then that will cause an alarm reaction for a certain length of time and then it would have to subside. For example, someone with aerophobia would experience an alarm reaction on a flight but this reaction would only have a certain longevity so the person would calm down and relearn the association.
Explain how systematic desensitisation could be used to treat fear of flying.
A person with aerophobia could gradually become more and more familiar with the situation while also learning breathing techniques and progressive muscle relaxation. For example suggest a 7 week treatment programme for fear of flying…
Explain how virtual reality exposure theory could be used to treat fear of flying.
Virtual Reality Exposure Theory - This involves people being exposed to a computer-generated three-dimensional virtual aeroplane as opposed to an actual aeroplane. Rothbaum et al. (2000) carried out research into the effectiveness of VRE therapy as a treatment for fear of flying and found it to be as effective as standard therapy (involving an actual aeroplane).
Evaluate how well classical conditioning explains the key question
✅One strength of using Classical Conditioning as a treatment of tear of flying is that research has demonstrated that therapies using CC principles can be effective.
X One weakness of Classical Conditioning as an explanation for fear of flying is that it could be considered reductionist. This is because it ignores social factors, such as how people may learn a fear response as a result of observational learning. Therefore, Social Learning Theory may be a better explanation.
Evaluate how well operant conditioning explains the key question
✅One strength of Operant Conditioning as an explanation for fear of flying is that the theory is supported by scientific research which uses reliable, standardised procedures.
E.g. Skinner was able to replicate his research and test whether behaviour is learnt through positive and negative reinforcements over and over again.
X However, one weakness of Operant Conditioning as an explanation of fear of flying is that it is questionable how applicable it is to aerophobia as most research in this area has been carried out with animals in artificial settings, lowering the generalisability and ecological validity.
Evaluate how well Social Learning Theory explains the key question
✅One strength of Social Learning Theory as an explanation of fear of flying is that it is a more holistic view
of learning as it considers social and cognitive factors.
X One weakness of ST as an explanation of fear of flying is that supporting evidence comes from lab experiments and so lack ecological validity. Therefore it is questionable whether the theory can be applied to fear of flying in the real world.
