Phobias Flashcards
Define ‘Phobia’
- An irrational fear of an object or situation
What are all phobias characterised by?
- Excessive fear & anxiety
- Triggered by an object, place or situation
What are the cateogories of phobia and related anxiety disorder in the DSM?
- Specific phobia
- Social anxiety (Social phobia)
- Agoraphobia
What is a specific phobia?
- Phobia of an object, such as an animal or body part or a situation.
Such as flying or having an injection
What is social anxiety (social phobia)?
- Phobia of a social situation.
such as a public speaking or using a public toilet
What is agoraphobia?
- Phobia of being outside or in a public place.
What are the 3 behavioural characterisitics of phobias?
- Panic
- Avoidance
- Endurance
What is meant by the behavioural reaction ‘panic’?
- A person with a phobia may panic in response to the prescence of the phobic stimulus
- Panic may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming or running away
Children may react slightly differently, e.g. clinging or having a tantrum.
What is meant by the behavioural response ‘avoidance’?
- Unless the person is making a conscious effort to face their fear they tend to go a lot of effort to preventing coming into contact with a phobic stimulus
- This can make it hard to go about daily life
What is meant by the behavioural response ‘endurance’?
- Occurs when the person chooses to remain in the prescence of the phobic stimulus.
e.g. a person with arachnophobia might choose to remain in a room with a spider on the ceiling and keep a wary eye on it rather than leaving.
What are the 3 emotional characterisitcs of phobias?
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Emotional response is unreasonable
What is anxiety?
- Phobias are classed as anxiety disorders
- Have an unpleasant state of high arousal
What is fear?
- The immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about a phobic stimulus
- Usually more intense but experience for shorter periods than anxiety.
What is the emotional response being unreasonable?
- The anxiety or fear is much greater than is ‘normal’ and will disproportionate to any threat posed.
e.g. a person with arachnophobia will have a strong emotional response to a tiny spider. Whereas most people would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisinous spider
What is the cognitive element of phobias concerned with?
- Concerned with the ways in which people process information.
- People with phobias process information about phobic stimuli differently from other objects or situations.
What are the cognitive characterisitcs of phobias?
- Selective attention- to the source of the phobia; often when the person is near the phobia, they cannot focus on anything else
- Usually keeping your attention on something dangerous gives you a higher chance of survival, this is not so, when the fear is irrational, such as with a phobia
- Cognitive distortions- The person’s perception of the phobia can often be distorted,
Someone who has a phobia of spiders can see the spider as aggressive and angry looking and may even feel that the spider is running toward them as if to attack
How does the behavioural approach explain phobias?
- It is focused on explaining the behaviours created by the phobia & does not explain the cognitive or emotional features of phobias
What is the two process model by Mowrer?
- Explanation for the onset & persistence of disorders that create anxiety, this includes phobias
- Had two stages
- Stage 1: Classical conditioning (learning by association)
- Stage 2: Operant conditioning (maintained by reinforcement)
Created by Mowrer
What is the acquisition of phobias by classical conditioning?
- Phobic objects are at first a neutral stimulus (NS) and do not produce a phobic response
- However, if it is then presented with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), that produces an unconditioned response (UCR) then, the NS will become associated with the UCS & then the fear (phobia), will occur whenever the NS is there
- This means the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the UCR becomes the conditioned response (CR)
e.g. trapped in a lift- panic attack= association between that lift & anixety= classical conditioning
How are phobias maintained by operant conditioning?
- If person avoids the phobic object/situation then anxiety is greatly reduced, which is rewarding for the sufferer
- Operant conditioning happens when behaviour is reinforced; by avoiding something unpleasant & being rewarded through not experiencing anxiety, we are reinforcing the avoidant behaviour
Give one strength for the two process model.
- Real worl applicatin in exposure therapies (such as systematic desensitisation)
- Distinctive element of the two process model is the idea that phobias are maintained by avoidance of the phobic stimulus
- Important in explaining why people w phobias benefit from being exposed to the phobic stimulus
Give an example of an acquisition of a phobia.
Watson & Rayner
Wanted to study the development of phobias
Conducted a lab experiment where they created a 9mo old baby called little Albert
What was the procedure for the Little Albert Study?
- At the start of the study, Albert showed no unusual anxiety or worries about different objects
- Albert tried to play with a white rat when presented with it at the beginning
- However W&R wanted to give Albert a phobia & so whenever the white rat was presented to Albert, they made a loud, scary noise by banging an iron bar close to Albert’s ear
- The noise (UCS), created a fear response
- When the rat (NS) & the UCS were put together, they became associated & both then created the fear response
Albert started to display fear when he saw the rat (NS)
The rat then became the CS that produces the CR & the phobia had started
What else did Watson & Rayner show?
- That the conditioned stimulus could be generalised to similar objects when they showed Albert other fluffy objects such as father christmas beard made from cotton wool & a fur coat
- Albert showed distress at all of these
- His phobia had become generalised
Give one disadvantage of the little Albert study
- Would not be able to take place today due to ethical guidelines & the psychological harm he was put under
What are the strengths of behavioural explanations of phobias?
Real world application
- Two process model has real world application - it explains using two distinctive elements how phobias are both created & maintained
- Watson & Rayners Little Albert study supports the two process model as they showed how a frightening experience can be conditioned
What are the weaknesses of behavioural explanations of phobias?
Cognitive aspects of phobias
- Two process model does not account for the cognitive processes associated w phobias
- Behavioural explanations focus on cause of of behaviours
- However cognitive components play a significant part in why someone has a phobia
- Not all phobias appear following a bad experience
What is the main behavioural treatment to overcome phobias?
Systematic Desensitisation
- Designed to slowly reduce the anxiety caused by the phobia using classical conditioning
- If patient can learn new response to the phobic stimulus, as well as learn to relax in presence of the phobia, then they will be cured
AND
Flooding
- A behavioural therapy in which a person w a phobia is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered bythat stimulus.
- Takes place across a small number of long therapy sessions
Give the strengths and weaknesses of flooding.
Strengths
- Highly cost-effective
- Clinical effectiveness means how effective a therapy is at tackling symptoms
- Flooding can work in as little as one session as opposed to say 10 sessions for SD to achieve the same result.
- This makes flooding more cost effective
Weaknesses
- Its a highly unpleasant experience
- Confronting one’s phobic stimulus in an extreme form provokes tremendous anxiety
- It raises ethical issues for psychologists of knowingly causing stress to their clients- this is not a serious issue provided they get informed consent
What are the three processes in systematic desnsitisation?
- Anxiety Hierarchy
- Relaxation
- Exposure
What is anxiety hierarchy?
- Patient & Therapist work together to construct an anxiety hierarchy,
- List of situations that involve the phobic stimulus from least to most frightening
What is relaxation?
- I is impossible to be afraid & relaxed at the same time & so the therapist teaches patient relaxation techniques
- This could be in form of breathing exercises or using imagining techniques, where patient imagines themselves in relaxing environment
- Could also include medication if needed to help the patient relax, such as Valium
What is exposure?
- Whilst in relaxed state patient is exposed to phobic stimulus starting at bottom of the hierarchy
- This is likely to take several sessions between patient & the therapist
Once the patient is comfortable and relaxed in the lower levels of the hierarchy, then they move up the scale - The aim of treatment is to allow patient to be successful & move up to the top of the hierarchy, whilst remaining relaxed
What are the strengths of systematic desensitisation?
- Systematic desensitisation is a fast treatment & requires less effort than most other psychotherapies
- SD doesn’t require a huge cognitive load and means the patients are less likely to become confused
- Has huge practical uses: Certain airlines use systematic desensitisation courses to help fearful flyers overcome their phobia
What are the weaknesses of systematic desensitisation?
- Systematic desensitisation doesn’t treat the cause of the phobia, only the behaviour it causes - This may leave patient vulnerable to other phobias developing as real reason behind fear has yet to be uncovered (Psychodynamic theory)
- They cannot apply what they have learned to actual everyday situations
Give another positive evaluation point for phobias?
- Having an environmentally deterministic approach is good
- It shows causation due to external factors from environment.
- For phobias, when someone has a phobia it is because they have been classically conditioned to have specific fear of an object/environment.
- e.g.for someone who has arachnophobia, their fear of spiders developed through an action/ characteristic spider may have such as the scurrying of legs, this is an unconditioned stimulus, which then causes the individual to produce an unconditioned response (fear).
- This association of the UCS to the NS the fear spider later turns into a CR that the individual produces.
- Therefore, as a result of the environmentally deterministic view it allows us to counter condition those who suffer from phobias through methods such as systematic desensitisation & flooding which involves straight exposure of phobic stimulus, to help those individuals who have phobias continue to go about their day-to-day life.
Why may having a deterministic view be limiting for phobias?
- Can be limiting as it assumes we do not have free will.
- e.g in OCD a phobia may develop without conditioning & without experiencing a traumatic event, and instead it may in fact be our own internal thoughts which we have some form of control over that are contributing to the anxiety disorder.
- Furthermore, phobias don’t always occur after an event in the environment & that there may be other factors that contribute to this as well, making it difficult to identify one particular cause.
