Phobias

Question 1

Behavioural characteristics of phobias (action)

Answer 1

Avoidance - interfere with life, avoid places
Endurance (freeze/faint) - instead of fight flight?
Disruption of functioning e.g work/ social
Panic - noise, panic, reaction

Question 2

Emotional characteristics of phobias (feelings)

Answer 2

Fear - might be immediate or last long, death?
Anxiety/ Panic - unpleasant negative feelings
Emotions - Strong and overreactive

Question 3

Cognitive characteristics of phobias (thinking)

Answer 3

Irrationality - resist rational arguments
Insight - aware of silliness but helpless against
Cognitive distortions - negative? perceptions
Selective attention - cannot focus elsewhere

Question 4

Two process model - Mowrer

Answer 4

Phobia learnt via classical conditioning or social learning
Then maintained by operant conditioning

Question 5

How are phobias learnt by classical conditioning

Answer 5

Neutral stimulus paired with unconditioned stimulus to produce emotional response
Over time paired association and learning built
Then conditioned stimulus presented alone will cause conditioned response

Question 6

Generalisation

Answer 6

When phobias extend to objects similar to the original phobic objects - e.g rats to rabbits and white fur hats

Question 7

Watson and Rayner (1920)

Answer 7

Little Albert - paired neutral white rat with unconditioned loud steel banging to cause a crying response, repeated 3 times x 2 weeks, then when conditioned rat present conditioned response of crying starts - long lasting phobia
Reconditioning attempted but taken to hospital before success
Generalisation occurred - rabbits, fur, white masks

Question 8

CC AO3

Answer 8

Little Albert only conducted once so unreliable - cannot be repeated ethically
King (1998) - meta-analysis linked children acquiring phobias and traumatic experiences e.g dog bites
Dinardo et al - not all traumatic experiences lead to phobias e.g car crashes and driving, and vice versa e.g snakes - incomplete
Menzies - only 2% of hydrophobic actually had negative experience of water, and 50% of dog fearers never had a negative experience

Question 9

Social Learning Theory

Answer 9

Observational learning where people (children) observe a fear response and learn to mimic that fear response

Question 10

SLT AO3

Answer 10

Minneka found when one monkey in a cage showed a fear response to snakes the others copied that response
Bandura - one person acted in pain to a buzzer noise - then participants showed the same response
Incomplete - people have fears not by learning and vice versa

Question 11

Operant conditioning

Answer 11

Phobia maintained by -
Negative reinforcement - avoid scary phobias
Positive reinforcement - feel joy and relief to avoid them so continue to do so

Question 12

Behavioural approach/ 2 process model AO3

Answer 12

• Ignores other factors e.g biological preparedness i.e disposition to fear and genetic/ evolutionary factors
• Doesn’t account for cognitive characteristics and thought processes to understand learning
• Reductionist as breaks down whole complex process of phobias into just 2 steps (link to ignoring biological and cognitive aspects)
  + Praise as it is 2 clear steps to highlight learning and maintenance - accurate and easy to understand by non-psychologists
  + Add eval from CC and SLT sections as well

Question 13

Wolpe (1958) - SD

Answer 13

1 - Fear hierarchy collaboratively devised w/ different phobic situations
2 - Deep muscle relaxation techniques learnt like progress muscle relaxation PMR - tense muscle group really tight, hold, relax, relax even more, and repeat and relaxation response, sit quietly, close eyes and work up body relaxing muscles w/ meditation/ imagination
3 - Gradual exposure to phobic object in fear hierarchy order moving up after comfort - repetition until phobia becomes extinct

Question 14

Wolpe (1958) - SD

Answer 14

1 - Fear hierarchy collaboratively devised w/ different phobic situations
2 - Deep muscle relaxation techniques learnt like progress muscle relaxation PMR - tense muscle group really tight, hold, relax, relax even more, and repeat and relaxation response, sit quietly, close eyes and work up body relaxing muscles w/ meditation/ imagination
3 - Gradual exposure to phobic object in fear hierarchy order moving up after comfort - repetition until phobia becomes extinct

Question 15

SD Eval

Answer 15

+ Jones (1924) used SD by moving a white rabbit slowly closer to ‘Little Peter’ until he eventually got over phobia and developed affection instead
+ Less traumatic than flooding due to gradual exposure - so more likely completion esp for vulnerable people e.g children or learning difficulties
- Time consuming as many sessions to train and for gradual exposure
- Not appropriate for generalised phobias like social behaviour - hard to devise a fear hierarchy or do gradual exposure
- Progress may not apply to outside the clinic setting when the person must face the fear without the therapist support
- Hard to organise exposure with phobic objects like sharks
- May not address underlying phobia cause - symptoms may return or be substituted with other abnormal behaviour

Question 16

Flooding

Answer 16

Prerequisite taught techniques like PMR and deep breathing, then immediate exposure to phobic object either in vivo - irl or virtually by imagining. No option for avoidance so quickly learn there is no real reason for fear, or become so exhausted by fear that they calm down or relax. Informed consent signed beforehand.

Question 17

Flooding Eval

Answer 17

+ Cost effective as less sessions required for hierarchy and gradual exposure - and quicker as well
- Less effective for curing e.g social phobias as it ignores cognitive aspects such as negative thoughts of speaking in public
- Very traumatic and many patients will not go to completion - which will lead to a waste of time and money, perhaps SD is better
+ Ost (1997) supports flooding as effective and rapid which can also be generalised to real life scenarios outside of therapy