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Psychology - Psychopathology AQA A Level > Phobias > Flashcards

Phobias Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias

There’s 3

A
  • Panic - you know what panic means
  • Avoidance - running away (interferes with everyday life)
  • Endurance - freezing up when in presence of phobic object
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2
Q

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias

There’s 2

A
  • Fear - unreasonable worry and distress
  • Anxiety - unsure of what will happen and apprehensive
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3
Q

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias

There’s 2

A
  • Irrational Beliefs - resist rational arguments, have thoughts that’s not logical
  • Selective Attention - become fixated on the phobic object
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4
Q

How are phobias initiated and how’re they maintained

Two Process Model

A

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

Two Process Model

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5
Q

Define classical and operant condition

A
  • Classical conditioning - learning through association
  • Operant conditioning - learning through consequences
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6
Q

‘Little Albert’ method (classical conditioning)

Watson & Raynor(1920)

A
  • hit metal bar to make noise every time he played with white fluffy rat

loud noise startled him causing him to cry

  • every time he saw anything white or fluffy he cried

Watson and Raynor (1920)

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7
Q

What were the stimuli & responses
‘Little Albert’

A
  • Loud noise - unconditioned stimulus (US)
  • Fear/crying - unconditioned response (UCR)
  • white rat - neutral stimulus (NS)

^Became associated with unconditioned stimulus

  • white rat - conditioned stimulus (CS)
  • fear/crying - conditioned response (CR)

^Conditioned response then generalised to other objects

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8
Q

How does operant conditioning work

Flow Chart

A
  • Reinforcement
    increase behaviour

Positive reinforcement
add good thing

Negative reinforcement
remove bad thing

  • Punishment
    decrease behaviour

Positive punishment
add bad thing

Negative punishment
remove good thing

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9
Q

(+) Strengths of Two-Process Model

How phobias are maintained/initiated

A
  • Doesn’t label people with stigma of mentally ill, instead wrongly learned responses which can change
  • King et al(1998) saw in case studies phobias develop from trauma (classical conditioning)
    Supporting Rachman’s three pathways theory of development of phobias
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10
Q

(-) Weaknesses of Two-Process Model

How phobias are maintained/initiated

A
  • People develop phobias WITHOUT traumatic experiences
  • People have traumatic experienced and DONT develop phobias
  • Doesn’t account for BIOLOGICAL factors to phobias
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11
Q

How are phobias treated

Two methods

A

Systematic Desensitisation

Flooding

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12
Q

What are the stages of systematic desensitisation

A

Anxiety Hierarchy

Relaxation Techniques

Gradual Exposure

Once comfortable, progress through hierarchy until phobia is eliminated

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13
Q

What is anxiety hierarchy

A

Ranking of fearful situations

Made by therapist & patient

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14
Q

What are relaxation techniques

A

Patients taught deep muscle relaxation techniques

  • progressive muscular relaxation, PMR (Tense group of muscles for a few seconds, fully contracted, and then relax).
  • Patients are told to sit quietly and comfortably close their eyes. Working from feet to top of body.
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15
Q

What is gradual exposure

A

Patient is introduced to the phobic object and work up the anxiety’s hierarchy

  • Use their relaxation techniques when exposed to phobic object
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16
Q

Systematic Desensitisation

(+) Little Peter

Jones(1920)

A

When a white rabbit was presented to Little Peter at gradually closer distances, his anxiety lessened until he was affectionate of the rabbit

Peter was a 2 year old who already had a phobia of white rabbits (generalised to other white objects)

17
Q

Systematic Desensitisation

(+) Panic disorder therpaies

Klosko et al(1990)

A
  • Klosko et al. (1990) supports SD. He assessed various therapies for panic disorders
  • 87% of patients were panic free after SD.
  • Compared to 50% on meds
  • 36% on placebo
  • 33% on nothing
18
Q

(-) Only addresses symptoms

Behavioural treatments

A
  • Behavioural treatments address Symptoms of phobias

Some critics claim underlying causes will remain

  • In the future symptoms can return or symptom substitution will occur
    -abnormal behaviours replace the removed ones
19
Q

What is Flooding

A
  • Directly exposing patient to phobic object.
  • Patients would be taught relaxation techniques beforehand.
  • No Anxiety Hierarchy.
  • Flooding stops phobic responses quickly, due to no option for avoidance. phobic object is deemed harmless, extinction occurs.
  • Patient may achieve relaxation from being exhausted by fear responses.
  • Patients are required to give fully informed consent to be ethical because of initial psychological harm.
  • Patients have options of SD or flooding. Sessions last 2-3 hours (longer than SD sessions)
20
Q

(+) research support for flooding

Wolpe(1960)

A
  • Wolpe(1960) supports flooding to remove a patient’s phobia of being in cars

Girl was forced into a car and driven around for 4 hours until her hysteria was eradicated

21
Q

(-) Weakness of flooding

A

Highly traumatic and patients would not wish to continue to its end

Time and money would be wasted for prep and phobias go uncured

Cannot be used on children

Psychology - Psychopathology AQA A Level (5 decks)

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