Paper 1 - psychopathology - phobias Flashcards
Identify the three types of phobia characteristics?
Emotional, cognitive and behavioural
Identify two emotional characteristics?
excessive fear, anxiety, unreasonable response (running away, more danger than thought)
Identify two cognitive characteristics?
Irrational beliefs, selective attention and cognitive distortions
What are the categories of Phobia
Specific phobias- an object or a specific situation
Social phobia- social situation
Agoraphobia- avoid places or situations that make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed
Identify two behavioural characteristics?
panic - heavy breathing, startled, crying
What is systematic desensitisation?
Gradual exposure, anxiety heirarchy, relaxation techniques, reciprocal inhibition, phobia extinguished when relaxation achieved at final stage of heirarchy.
What is flooding?
Immediate exposure, prevents avoidance behaviour, stress cant be biologically maintained- stress then extinguished
Strengths of Systematic desensitisation
Evidence base for its effectiveness- effective at treating phobias.
Can be used on anyone, more universal method
Outline the two process model?
Acquisition - classical conditioning
- phobias learnt through association
Example
UCS (being bitten) — unconditioned response (fear)
neutral stimulus (dog) — no response
ns + UNCS — UCR
CS (seeing a dog) — CR(fear)
Maintenance - operant conditioning
- negative reinforcement - ongoing avoidance prevents an unpleasant physical response
Strength and a weakness on flooding
Strength- more cost effective, cost effective treatment
Weakness- highly unpleasant experience, should be avoided due to this
outline a strength of the two process model
P- Little albert supportive research
E - child shown white mouse then heard a loud banging which made him cry
E - controlled study - provides clear cause and effect of learning through classical conditioning
CA - ethical issues - child not protected from harm
Outline a weakness of the 2 process model?
P - ignores cognitive factors
E - to simple to say there is just an avoidance response - ignores cognitive
E - no explanation of the phobias and what causes the cognitions
L -
