Phobias

Question 1

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias

Answer 1

Avoidance
Endurance
Disruption of functioning
Panic

Question 2

What is avoidance

Answer 2

• when faced with the object or situation that creates fear, the response is to avoid the object or situation
• this can interfere with the persons normal daily life e.g social or occupational activities, causing distress
• THE PERSON AVOIDS PLACES WHERE THEY MAY SEE THEIR PHOBIC OBJECT

Question 3

What is endurance

Answer 3

• when a person is stressed their bodily response is usually fight or flight.
• when faced with the object or situation that is feared, a person may freeze or faint
• ## freezing is so that the predator may think the Person is dead so will leave them alone

Question 4

What is the disruption of functioning

Answer 4

The Anxiety or avoidance caused by the phobia may be so extreme that this could interfere with the persons ability to function socially or at work

Question 5

What is panic

Answer 5

The person with the phobic object may panic in the presence of a stimulus.
They might show behavioural characteristics of crying, screaming, vomiting, running away or freezing

Question 6

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias

Answer 6

1) fear
2) panic and anxiety

Question 7

What is fear?

Answer 7

• persistent, excessive and unreasonable fear may be felt in the presence of the stimulus and this can be long lasting
• they may have feelings of terror and worry about death if they come into contact with their phobic object

Question 8

What is meant by panic and anxiety (emotional characteristics)

Answer 8

They will feel highly anxious and experience unpleasant negative feelings when faced with the phobic situation.

Question 9

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias

Answer 9

1) irrationality
2) insight
3) cognitive distortions
4) selective attention

Question 10

What is irrationality

Answer 10

The person will think in an irrational manner about their phobia and will resist rational arguments that counter it.

Question 11

What is insight

Answer 11

The person knows that their fear is excessive/unreasonable but they still find it hard not to fear the object

Question 12

What are cognitive distortions

Answer 12

The person will have a distorted perception of the stimulus and will view them in a negative way.

Question 13

What is selective attention

Answer 13

When the person encounters the phobic stimulus, they cannot look away and they focus all of their attention on it. They just focus on the phobic stimulus

Question 14

What is the two process model by Mowrer (

Answer 14

1) the phobia is learnt by classical conditioning or social learning
- classsical conditioning involved building up an association between two different stimuli so that learning takes place.
-e,g white rat (neutral stimulus) is presented to a person. Loud banging noise (unconditioned stimulus) is present causing the person to have an emotional response. Repeatedly paid the two stimuli together until classical conditioning and learning takes place. The white rat becomes a conditioned stimulus and the person has a conditioned response.
2) the phobia is maintained by operant conditioning

Question 15

Evaluation of classical conditioning (AO3)

Answer 15

Disadvantages:
- The study on little Albert can be criticised as it was only conducted once and the finding have not been repeated (not very reliable). It could be questioned whether the same results would be gained if the study was repeated. The study cannot be repeated now due to ethical concerns

• some people do have traumatic experiences but many of them do not develop a phobia, so classical conditioning does not explain how phobias develop. Some people may have not had a negative experience with an object but still have a phobia
• Menzies criticised the behavioural model. He studied people who had a phobia of water (hydrophobia) and he found that only 2% of his sample encountered a negative experience with water . Therefore 98%of his sample had a phobia of water but never had a negative experience with water and had not learnt to be scared of water by classical conditioning

Advantages:
- King (1998) supports the idea proposed by classical conditioning. From reviewing case studies he has found that children acquire phobias by encountering traumatic experience with the phobic object.

Question 16

What is social learning theory (AO1)

Answer 16

• young children may observe a reaction that their parents or family had to a particular situation and the child will copy this behaviour
• we develop a phobia by observational learning.
• Minneka found that when one monkey in a cage showed a fear response to snakes the other monkeys in the cage copied this response and also showed a fear response to snakes.

Question 17

What is operant conditioning (AO1)

Answer 17

• this involves learning a new response that can result in reinforcement.
• it explains how phobias can be maintained
• negative reinforcement - e.g if someone if scared of snakes they will avoid them in order to reduce the risk that they will feel fear.
• positive reinforcement - it is rewarding. By avoiding snakes, and not feeling fear, this is rewarding, so the avoidance of snakes continues

Question 18

Evaluation of the 2 process model (AO3)

Answer 18

Disadvantages

1) The behavioural model/two process model is limited as it ignores other factors that could cause phobias. The Behavioural model focuses on learning and the environment, but would not take into account biological or evolutionary factors that could cause phobias. Some people might have more of a genetic vulnerability to develop phobias than others and the behavioural model would ignore this

2) Social learning theory can be successful in explaining how learning a phobia can occur in animals and young children. However, social learning theory is not very strong in explaining how adults can learn to have phobias. Therefore the behavioural model is limited to only explaining learning in young children and animals only

Disadvantages:
1) Bandura supports the idea of Social learning theory. A piece of research was conducted whereby a person acted as if they were in pain when a buzzer sounded, and participants had to watch this reaction. Later on the participants were given the chance to hear the sound of the buzzer and they showed the same response (acted as if they were in pain). Therefore, social learning theory does seem to be an effective method when learning to become fearful of an object

2) The two step process has received praise because it involves two clear steps that highlight how phobias are learned and how they are maintained. They are learnt by powerful classical conditioning or social learning theory, and then are maintained by operant conditioning (either positive or negative reinforcement). The process seems an accurate way in explaining how phobias can be learnt overall

Question 19

What is the definition of systematic desensitisation (AO1)

Answer 19

• a behavioural therapy developed by Wolpe (1958) to reducephobias by using classical conditioning.
• SD uses classical conditioning to replace the irrational fears associated with phobic objects with calm and relaxed responses instead.

The central idea of SD is that it is impossible to experience two opposite emotions at the same time (reciprocal inhibition)

• if the patient can learn to remain relaxed in the presence of their phobia, they can be cured. This is called counter conditioning.

Question 20

What is the process involved in systematic desensitisation

Answer 20

1) The hierarchy of fear:
A hierarchy of fear is constructed by the therapist and the patient. Situations involving the phobic object are ranked from least fearful to most fearful.

2) Relaxation techniques:
Patients are taught deep muscle relaxation techniques, such as deep breathing, progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) and the relaxation response. The idea behind PMR is to tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible, hold them in a state of extreme tension for a few seconds and then relax the muscles to their previous state. Finally, consciously relax the muscles even further so that the patient is as relaxed as possible.

3) Gradual Exposure:
The patient is introduced to their phobic object gradually and they work their way up the fear hierarchy starting with the least frightening stage. They must use their relaxation technique whilst they are exposed to the phobia object at each stage. When they feel comfortable with one particular stage of the hierarchy they move on to the next stage in the hierarchy. through repeated exposure to phobic objects with relaxation, the phobia is eliminated.

Question 21

Evaluation of systematic desensitisation

Answer 21

Advantage
- 1) Jones (1924) supports the use of SD to eradicate ‘Little Peter’s’ phobia. A white rabbit was presented to Little Peter at gradually closer distances and each time his anxiety levels lessoned. Eventually he developed affection for the white rabbit, which extended to all white fluffy objects. This shows how SD can work to eliminate phobias

2) Klosko et al. (1990) supports the use of SD. He assessed various therapies for the treatment of panic disorders and found that 87% of patients were panic free after receiving SD, compared to 50% receiving medication, 36% receiving a placebo and 33% receiving no treatment at all. Therefore SD is an effective therapy compared to others

3) 3) SD had the advantages of being a less traumatic therapy for phobias than other behavioural therapies. Therefore SD has less ethical implications than other types of behavioural therapies, and it is less upsetting for the patient to endure.

Disadvantages:
1) A disadvantage of SD is that it is not always practical for individuals to be desensitized by confronting real life phobic situations. Real life step-by-step situations are difficult to arrange and control. SD might be very difficult to apply to real life situations/phobias and this can question the effectiveness of the therapy

5) Behavioural treatments do have the advantage that they address the symptoms of phobias. However some critics believe the symptoms are merely the tip of the iceberg and claim that underlying causes of the phobia will remain, and in the future the symptoms will return or symptom substitution will occur, when other abnormal behaviours replaced the ones that have been removed.

Question 22

Behavioural therapy: Flooding (Implosion): (AO1):

Answer 22

.

Question 23

Evaluation of flooding: (AO3):

Answer 23

1) Flooding has the advantage of being cost effective Flooding seems to be a quick therapy for phobias which is useful as it means that patients are free of their symptoms as soon as possible, and this makes the treatment cost effective and cheaper.

2) Ost (1997) stated that flooding is an effective and rapid treatment that delivers immediate improvements for phobic patients. This is especially the case when a patient is encouraged to continue self directed exposure to feared objects and situations outside of the therapy situation. The results from flooding can be applied to everyday life outside of the therapy situation.

Disadvantages:
2) A disadvantage of flooding is that it is less effective for curing some types of phobias such as social phobia. This might be because social phobias have more cognitive aspects that flooding cannot address very well. Social phobias can be cured more successfully by using cognitive therapies

4) 3) A disadvantage of flooding is that it is a highly traumatic experience and many patients might be unwilling to continue with the therapy until the end. Time and money might be wasted preparing patients for the flooding experience, and then the patient might decide that they do not want to take part or complete the treatment, and their phobia remains uncured. This is a waste of time and money, and maybe other alternatives might be better such as SD