Lesson 6 - Behavioural Approach to Explaining Phobias Flashcards
What is the behavioural view on phobias?
The behavioural approach suggests that all behaviour (including phobias) can be learnt and those who have an abnormality can learn negative behaviours.
What is classical conditioning in phobias?
Classical conditioning is when an association is built up between two stimuli (in this case, a phobic object and a negative stimulus).
Neutral Stimulus with no conditioned response is presented;
Negative unconditioned stimulus (such as a loud banging noise) is presented, which causes a negative emotional response such as crying;
These stimuli are consistently placed together, and this will then transform the neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus, that is combined with a conditioned response.
What did Watson and Rayner study?
They conducted the ‘Little Albert’ study (1920).
They showed Albert (an 11 month old baby) a white rat, and whenever they presented him with the white rat, they hit a metal bar with a hammer behind albert’s head. This caused him to cry when he was presented with the rat. They did this 7 times in each session (half hour sessions), and did these sessions 2 weeks in a row. This resulted in Albert having a severe phobia of not only the white rat, but also all white fluffy things e.g. a father Christmas beard. Albert generalised his fear to other things with similar characteristics.
Evaluation of Classical Conditioning (Weakness) - Lack of reliability
The study on Little Albert was only conducted once, and the findings have never been repeated, which makes it unreliable. This means it could be questioned, whether the same results would be gained if this study was repeated again. However, the study cannot be repeated due to ethical concerns.
Evaluation of Classical Conditioning (Weakness) - Not all phobias have a traumatic event
Many people’s phobias do come from traumatic events such as a car accident, but this is not everyone. Many people in car crashes do not end up developing a phobia. Classical conditioning cannot explain how all phobias develop. There are also some phobias, where people have reportedly not had a negative experience or have not even met their phobic object before e.g. snakes.
Evaluation of Classical Conditioning - King (Positive)
King (1998), supports the ideas proposed by classical conditioning. He reviewed children with phobias, and found that children that are bitten by a dog, often develop a phobia of dogs.
Evaluation of Classical Conditioning - Menzies (Weakness)
Menzies criticises this. He studied people with a phobia of water, and found that only 2% of the sample had a phobia of water, but had never had a negative experience involving water. This backs up the idea that classical conditioning is not the main reason for phobias developing.
What is social learning?
This is the idea that young children may observe a reaction from their family, and copy the behaviour. For example, if an adult has a phobic reaction when interacting with dogs, then the child will copy this reaction, and develop a phobia of dogs via social learning.
What did Minneka find?
Minekka found that social learning applies in animals as well. He found that when one monkey in a cage showed a fear response to snakes, other monkeys in the cage copied this. They then developed a fear response to snakes as well.
How does operant conditioning work with the social learning theory?
Operant conditioning can help maintain a developed phobia that is learnt by either social learning or classical conditioning.
What is operant conditioning and how does it work?
It maintains a phobia via reinforcement. This reinforcement can be negative or positive,
What is negative reinforcement?
If someone is scared of snakes they will avoid snakes. This avoidance will reduce the chance of feeling fear
What is positive reinforcement?
This is when there is a reward for not confronting the phobia. For example, if someone with a snake phobia, avoids a snake, they will feel relieved and this emotion of relief, will reinforce the feeling of avoidance.
Evaluation of the two process model - Ignores other factors that cause phobias
This model focuses on learning and the environment, but completely ignores the biological or evolutionary reasons for phobias. For example, some people may have a genetic vulnerability to developing phobias.
Evaluation of the two process model - Does not apply to adults
While social learning can explain animals and children’s phobias, it does not explain how fully grown adults can develop phobias. Adults do not have the same subconscious learning capacity, and thus it ignores this.
