Phobias

Question 1

What is a phobia?

Answer 1

Instances of irrational fears that produce an avoidance of the feared object or situation

Question 2

What are specific phobias?

Answer 2

• Fears rekated to a particular object/situation
• Includes animal phobias e.g. dogs and situational phobias e.g. planes, lifts, etc

Question 3

What is a social phobia?

Answer 3

• An excessive fear of situations involving other people
• Someone with a social phobia is afraid of any activity performed in public e.g. eating in public

Question 4

What is agoraphobia?

Answer 4

• Fear of public places
• Can result in being afraid to leave their home and so being unable to go to work or shop for food
• Thus it’s thought to be the most serious of all phobias
• Many with agoraphobia are also prone to panic attacks when they venture into public places

Question 5

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 5

• Panic: may involve a range of behaviours e.g. crying, screaming, running away
• Avoidance: making a conscious effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobic stimulus. This can make it hard to go about daily life
• Endurance: alternative to avoidance. A sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety

Question 6

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 6

• Anxiety: phobias are examples of anxiety disorders. They involve an emotional response of anxiety and fear. Anxiety prevents the sufferer relaxing and makes it very hard to experience any positive emotion. Fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response experienced when encountering or thinking about a phobic stimulus
• Emotional responses are unreasonable: the emotional responses experienced in relation to phobic stimuli go beyond what is reasonable

Question 7

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 7

• Decrease in concentration: people with phobias often find it very difficult to concentrate and therefore they have an inability to complete tasks when the phobic stimulus is around
• Irrational beliefs: a phobic may hold irrational beliefs in relation to phobic stimuli e.g. thoughts of death