Phobias Flashcards
Characteristics of phobias - (A01)
Behavioural:
Panic - scream or run away.
Avoidance - conscious effort to avoid.
Endurance - may stay and bear it.
Emotional:
Anxiety - unpleasant state of high arousal, disproportionate to threat.
Fear - short-lasting, more intense.
Emotional response is unreasonable/disproportionate to threat.
Cognitive:
Selective attention - can’t look away
Irrational beliefs - unfounded beliefs.
Cognitive distortions - unrealistic.
Behavioural explanation of phobias - (A01)
Two-process model - Two processes of conditioning (Mowrer).
Acquisition by classical conditioning - UCS linked to NS, then both produce UCR (fear), now called the CR.
E.g. Little Albert played with the rat (NS), heard loud noise (UCS), then rat (now CS) produces fear response (now CR).
Maintenance by operant conditioning - Avoidance of phobic stimulus negatively reinforced by anxiety reduction, so the phobia is maintained.
Behavioural explanation of phobias - Evaluation (A03)
Real-world application - Phobias successfully treated by preventing avoidance, as suggested by the model.
Cognitive aspects of phobias - Fails to account for cognitive aspects of phobias, e.g. irrational fears.
Phobias and traumatic experiences - 73% of people with a dental phobia had past trauma, in control group with no phobia only 21% had trauma (De Jongh et al.).
Counterpoint - not all cases of phobias follow bad experiences and vice versa.
Evaluation extra: Learning and evolution - Two-process model explains individual phobias, but evolutionary approach explains general aspects of phobias.
Systematic desensitisation (SD) - (A01)
Anxiety hierarchy - A list of situations ranked for how much anxiety they produce.
Relaxation -
Reciprocal inhibition - relaxation and anxiety can’t happen at the same time.
Relaxation includes imagery and/or breathing techniques.
Exposure - Exposed to phobic stimulus whilst relaxed at each level of the anxiety hierarchy.
Systematic Desensitisation (SD) - Evaluation (A03)
Evidence of effectiveness - More effective than relaxation alone after 33 months (Gilroy et al.). and effective for a range of phobias (Wechsler et al.).
People with learning disabilities - SD best - cognitive therapy requires rational thinking, flooding is traumatic.
Evaluation extra: SD in virtual reality - Avoids dangerous situations and cost-effective, but lacks realism (Wechsler et al.).
Flooding - (A01)
What is it? - Exposes clients to a very frightening situation without a build-up.
How does it work? - Works by extinction of the conditioned fear response.
Ethical safeguards - Clients must give informed consent and be prepared for flooding.
Flooding - Evaluation (A03)
Cost-effective - Clinically effective and not expensive, may take only 1-3 sessions.
Traumatic - Rated as more stressful than SD (Schumacher et al.), lack of informed consent and higher attrition rates.
Evaluation extra: Symptom substitution - Occurs if cause of phobia is not tackled e.g. women with death phobia (Persons), but only evidence is from case studies, may not generalise.
