Phobias

Question 1

What are the 3 kinds of phobia?

Answer 1

• Specific phobias
• Social phobias
• Agoraphobia

Question 2

What are the main behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

• Panic
• Endurance
• Avoidance

Question 3

What are the main emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

• Anxiety- the unpleasant state of high arousal
• Fear- the immediate unpleasant response to phobic stimulus
• Emotions are often unreasonable when compared to phobic stimulus.

Question 4

What are the main cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 4

• Cognitive distortions
• Irrational beliefs
• Selective attention to stimulus

Question 5

What is the behavioural explanation of phobias?

Answer 5

The two-process model:

• Acquisition by classical conditioning (association with fear response)
• Maintenance by operant conditioning (reinforcement of behaviours)

Question 6

What are the benefits and limitations of this explanation of phobias?

Answer 6

Benefits:
-Explains why we need to be exposed to maintain a phobia
-Applicable to treatment
-Suggests other reasons for avoidance behaviour
Limitations:
-Doesn’t explain evolutionary phobias (biological preparedness)
-Doesn’t consider the cognitive elements of phobias`

Question 7

What is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 7

A treatment of phobias in which the patient is gradually exposed to a phobic stimulus and relaxed in order to negate the anxiety response, it is based on the premise of reciprocal inhibition.
Steps include:
-Anxiety hierarchy
-Relaxation
-Exposure

Question 8

What is flooding?

Answer 8

A treatment of phobias in which the patient is immediately exposed to a very phobic situation for up to 3 hours.
It works because, without the possibility of performing the avoidance behaviour, the patient should quickly realise that the stimulus is harmless

Question 9

What are the benefits and limitations of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 9

Benefits:
-Not traumatic
-Doesn’t require much from the patient
-Gilroy et al. (2003) showed that a group having undergone 3 sessions of SD was less fearful of a stimulus than a control group
Limitations:
-Can be very time consuming
-Some more complex phobias might require a cognitive treatment rather than a behavioural one

Question 10

What are the benefits and limitations of flooding?

Answer 10

Benefits:
-Usually only requires one session
Limitations:
-Some more complex phobias might require a cognitive treatment rather than a behavioural one
-Treatment is potentially traumatic