Phobia Characteristics Flashcards
What is a phobia?
Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder characterised by an irrational and persistent fear that is excessive or unreasonable, cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation (e.g. flying, heights, seeing blood).
1) Behavioural - The way people act
The behavioural characteristics of phobias can be divided into two categories: avoidance and panic.
1) The key behavioural characteristic of a phobia is avoidance. If a person with a phobia is presented with an object or situation that they fear, their immediate response is to avoid it. For example, a person with arachnophobia will avoid being near spiders.
2) However, people are not always able to avoid their phobias and sometimes come face-to-face with them. This results in panic, which causes high levels of stress and anxiety. Sometimes the fear response is so intense, it results in a person ‘freezing’, which is a part of the ‘fight or flight’ fear response. The freezing response is an adaptive response to make a predator think that their prey is dead.
3) An alternative to avoidance is endurance, where the sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus, experiencing very high levels of anxiety.
2) Emotional - The way people feel
The key emotional characteristics of phobias are excessive and unreasonable anxiety and fear.
Anxiety is an unpleasant state of high emotional arousal and is triggered by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation, which is excessive in relation to the danger actually posed. It prevents the sufferer from relaxing and makes it extremely difficult for them to experience any positive emotion at the time. Anxiety can be long term.
Fear is the immediate and very unpleasant response when someone thinks or comes across the phobic stimulus.
3) Cognitive - The way people think
The cognitive characteristics of phobias are also divided into two characteristics: selective attention and irrational beliefs.
1) If a person with a phobia is presented with their phobic stimulus, they will find it difficult to direct their attention elsewhere. Therefore, a person’s selective attention will cause them to become fixated on the object that they fear because of the irrational beliefs about the danger posed. It is logical as keeping our attention on something we think is dangerous gives us the best opportunity to react quickly to the threat but it is not helpful if the fear is irrational.
2) Furthermore, a person’s phobia is defined by their irrational thoughts towards the phobic stimulus. For example, a person with arachnophobia may believe that all spiders are dangers and deadly, despite the fact that no spiders in the UK are actually deadly.
