Phobias Flashcards
What are phobias?
How much of the population does it affect?
Most common phobia?
A type of psychological disorder that can affect around 11% of the population
Agoraphobia
When do specific phobias tend to develop?
Social phobias?
Agoraphobia?
What does this suggest?
Childhood
Adolescence
Early adulthood
Suggests that the cause for each phobia may be different
Categories of phobias
Animal type
Natural environment type
Blood injection
Situational type
Other type
What do you need to fit in order to be diagnosed with a phobia ands what does it include?
Diagnostics criteria
-exposure to phobic stimulus provokes anxiety response
-marked as persistent fear that’s excessive
-person recognises that fear is excessive and unreasonable
-avoidance of phobia
-under 18:phobia lasts over 6 months
-anxiety and panic attacks due to specific object or situation that is not accounted with another disorder
How can phobias be acquired through?
What does the phobic object become?
What does this explain?
Acquired through learning from the environment
The phobic object becomes a conditioned stimulus
This explains how it is possible to acquire a phobic response. To any object providing it is paired with a negative stimulus
How would a phobia of paruresis be squirted through classical conditioning
-Someone who experiences paruresis once and suffers the resulting anxiety may become conditioned to avoid the situation of being in a public toilet.
-if other people notice and laugh, this can be intensified because being slightly at is an unconditioned stimulus ands if it is paired with public toilets (neutral stimulus) then toilets (conditioned stimulus) will provide the same anxiety response (conditioned response) as laughter.
How does operant conditioning explain how phobia is maintained?
What is the implication of this?
-if sufferers avoid their phobic object this removes the unpleasant emotions so avoidance becomes a reward and reinforces the behaviour of avoidance.
-this avoidance results in the removal of the unpleasant anxiety symptoms so reinforcing avoidance behaviour.
-it then becomes the persons preferred method of coping with future social events.
The implication of this is that sufferers do not have the opportunity to extinguish behaviours.
How does social learning suggest we learn phobias?
How is vicarious learning important for this?
-Through observing and imitating other role models.
-Many specific phobias are developed through childhood and are therefore likely to be learnt from parents.
-It seems we acquire some phobias much more easily than others in the way.
-VICARIOUS LEARNING would also be important as if we see them rewarded for their actions we are more likely to reproduce the behaviours (sense of relief when running away from fear)
Supporting studies for learning explanations of phobias
-Little Albert
-Watson and Rayner successfully conditioned Albert to fear a rat through stimulus response pairings which was then generalised to other stimuli including a dog, cotton wool and fur coat.
-demonstrating the phobias can be acquired through CLASSICAL CONDITIONING.
-Cook & mineka
-Monkeys developed a snake phobias by observing other moneys fearful reaction to a snake in a video.
-supports SOCIAL LEARNING in the acquisition of phobias as the monkeys did not react to experience a direct traumatic event to develop their fear, instead the learned through VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT by overusing other moneys fearful reaction.
Criticisms of the studies - learning explanations of phobias
-Albert has been raised in a hospital environment from birth and he was unusual as he had never been sent to show fear or rage of staff.
-Therefore little Albert may have responded differently in this experiment to9 have other young children may have. These findings will therefore be unique to him.
-cook and mineka is weak evidence
-the study focuses on social interactions with moneys therefore humans may respond differently in this scenario as the findings cannot be extrapolated to humans so would limit the development of phobia treatment as a result.
Opposing studies of learning explanations of phobias.
-Dinardo et al
-Found that 50% of dog phobics had an unpleasant encounter but also about 50% of Normal controls had also experienced an unpleasant encounter but didnt develop a phobia.
-behaviour ignores cognitive factors and cannot account for individual variation. This variation could be due to patients perception and interpretation and so cognitive rather than behavioural factors are important.
Different theories- learning explanations of phobias
-Alternative explanations form the psychodynamic approach (Freud)
-Which suggests that phobias are a result of repressed conflict displayed onto a more socially acceptable object. (Doesn’t use hypothetical-deductive method)
-This can explain that phobias may stem from unconscious conflicts rather than direct experience
Applications for learning explanations of phobias
-Practical application of the knowledge that classical conditioning can lead to phobvia devlelopment.
-Watson and Rayner demonstrated that phobias can be learned when a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a UCS that naturally causes fear.
-this understanding has led to the development of effective treatments for phobias such as systematic desensitisation
