Phobias Flashcards
Describe what is meant by phobias
The irrational fear of a specific object or situation
Describe the characteristics of agoraphobia
A fear of leaving home or a familiar “safe place”
Describe the characteristics of specific phobia
Involves a fear with a specific object or situation. Can be separated into 5 different categories: blood-injection type, animal type, natural environment type, situational type and other.
Describe the characteristics of social anxiety disorder
When an individual is worried about others judging them.
Explain how phobias can be genetically inherited
Phobias can be genetically inherited as some genes can increase the chance of having a phobia. An example which suggests this is Harris et al (1983) which found that close relatives of patients with agoraphobia were more likely to have agoraphobia than close relatives of non-anxious people.
Explain how phobias can be explained through evolution
It has been suggested that phobias has been retained through evolution as our ancestors may have used them as safety responses to life threatening dangers such as heights and spiders.
Describe the aim of Ressler and Dias (2013)
They wanted to see if mice would genetically inherit the fear of a particular smell
Describe the method of Ressler and Dias (2013)
They conducted a lab experiment using mice trained to fear the smell of a chemical (acetophenone). They wafted the scent of the chemical in combination with electrical shocks to the mice. the mice eventually associated the smell with pain through classical conditioning and shuddered at the smell alone. They then assessed the mice’s offspring to see if they had inherited the fear of the smell
Describe the results of Ressler and Dias (2013)
Even though the offspring had never encountered the smell, when presented with it they showed fear. This fear was also present in the next generation of mice.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Ressler and Dias (2013)
Strength: It can easily be replicated due to being a lab experiment
Strength: It has been viewed as a rigorous study that shows a genetic link to phobias.
Weakness: Due to the study being an animal study the results are harder to generalise to humans.
Describe the aim of Watson and Rayner’s Little Albert study (1920)
To find out if a child’s response to noise was innate or an unconditional response and if it was an unconditional response if the response could be transferred to a stimulus that would not normally cause fear in a child.
Describe the Method of Little Albert (1920)
A child was given a white rat to play with which he showed no fear to. In later trials he was given the white rat while the researchers made loud noises. After several trials where the rat and noise were paired Albert was given the rat on it’s own again
Describe the Results of Little Albert
When showed the rat Albert showed no fear, when presented with the rat and the noise Albert showed fear and finally when he was given the rat on its own after it was paired with the noise he showed fear.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Little Albert
Strength: Since it is a human study the results are more easily generalisable to a wider population.
Strength: The study provided conclusive evidence that there was a link between Classical conditioning and phobias.
Weakness: The validity has been called into question as it was not well documented and the timeline is unclear.
Explain how systematic desensitisation can treat phobias
It is a Counter-conditioning procedure that undoes classical conditioning by gradually introducing a patient to an object or event they are uncomfortable with until they become used to it. they do this by gradually working their way up from the least scary scenario to the most scary.
