Phobias Flashcards
What are the two types of behavioural characteristics of phobias
Avoidance and Panic
Someone with a phobia of spiders will try to avoid being near spiders. If they come face to face with their fear it could result in panic. High levels of stress and anxiety. Fight or Flight response
What are the key emotional characteristics of a phobia
Excessive fear, anxiety triggered by presence or anticipation of an object or situation.
Cognitive Characteristics of a phobia
Selective attention and irrational beliefs
Someone faced with their phobia will find it difficult to direct their attention to anything else. Their selective attention will cause them to become fixated on their fear.
A persons phobia is defined by their irrational thinking towards the object. All spiders are deadly even though there aren’t any deadly spiders in the UK.
Who developed the two process model
Mowrer 1947 phobias are acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning
Classical conditioning is learning by association.
Dog {NS] not scared
Being bitten (UCS)
Creates FeAr (UCR)
Now Dog is (NS) associated with Fear
Fear response (CR)
Phobias can be negatively reinforced. Avoiding phobias read reduces the persons feelings of anxiety and negatively reinforces the behaviour making the person more likely to repeat this behaviour avoidance in the future this maintains the phobia.
Evidence supporting two process model
Watson and Rayner 1920 conducted an experiment on the 11-year-old child called Little Albert before the experiment little Albert showed no response to a white rat. whenever Albert reached for the rat Watson and Rayner struck a metal bar with a hammer causing a very loud noise.
Behaviourist ideas have been used to develop a systematic desensitisation and flooding
Behaviourist explanations ignores cognitive thinking or irrational thinking claustrophobia is irrational thinking
cognitive approach has led to the development of cognitive behavioural therapy CBT a treatment which is said to be more successful than behaviourist treatment
The result of this was whenever they showed little Albert the white rat he began to cry.
Behaviourist ideas having used to develop treatments including systematic desensitisation and flooding.
What are the two behavioural treatments for phobias
Systematic desensitisation and flooding
Systematic desensitisation and counterconditioning. A hierarchy of fear is made is made and the individual with relaxation techniques such as breathing techniques. This is because a person is unable to be anxious and relax at the same time and the relaxation should take over the fear.
Flooding is immediate unavoidable exposure with flooding a person is unable to avoid the phobia through continuous exposure. No negative reinforcement.
Evaluation of Flooding
It’s much cheaper than the other treatments and just as affective it takes much less time in achieving the results.
However it’s highly traumatic patience experience high levels of anxiety it’s possible that it could make the phobia even worse Wolpe 1969 said a patient had to go to the hospital.
It’s not affective for social phobias or less specific phobias complex phobias can be treated by behavioural treatment.
Evaluation of systematic desensitisation
It’s much more ethical but it’s not as effective in treating all phobias
