phobias: behavioural approach to explaining phobias

Question 1

what are the 3 characteristics that phobias, OCD and depression have?

Answer 1

behavioural
cognitive
emotional

Question 2

what are behavioural characteristics?

Answer 2

how does the person act?
are there any typical behaviours they do or avoid doing

e.g panic, crying , screaming

avoidance- keeping away from stimulus

Question 3

what are cognitive characteristics ?

Answer 3

link to someones thought process
what are they thinking ?

is their language, problem solving or memory impacted?

irrational thought procsesses
person knows their fear is excessive
selective attention to phobic stimulus
cognitive distortions

Question 4

what are emotional characteristics?

Answer 4

these are characteristics which link to someones feelings, how does the person experiencing the disorder feel

are they feeling sad, anxious scared, tired?

examples: anxiety/ fear which is out of proportion to the danger they are in

unpleasant state of high arousal

prevents sufferer relaxing and cant experience positive emotion

Question 5

what is the 2 process model of explaining phobias ?

Answer 5

phobias are developed due to classical conditioning and the phobia is maintained by operant conditioning

classical conditioning :
UCS – UCR
UCS+ NS — UCR
CS—CR

the phobia is maintained by positive and negative reinforcement

positive reinforcement : Giving something to the person so they carry on with their phobia e.g hugs and comfort

negative reinforcement : taking something away e.g avoiding the phobic stimulus

Question 6

strength of behavioural approach: little albert

Answer 6

little albert was conditioned to have a fear of white rats through classical conditioning

this supports the idea that classical conditioning is involved in acquiring phobias in humans so this can generalise to other phobic stimuli

however it was a case study so findings may be specific to albert

Question 7

strength : application to therapy

Answer 7

the behaviourist ideas have been used to develop treatments including systematic desensitisation and flooding

Systematic desensitisation helps people to unlearn their phobias using principles of classical conditioning and flooding stops negative reinforcement

these therapies have been affective in treating people with phobias

Question 8

strength : has face validity

Answer 8

it is rational to assume that a negative association could lead to a phobic response

supports occums razor that the simplest explanation is usually the best

Question 9

weakness- poor explanatory power

Answer 9

not all phobias develop from negative association

e.g some people have never seen a snake but still have a phobia

Question 10

weakness: cognitive approach would say otherwie

Answer 10

2 process model focuses on behavioural characteristics of phobias

it doesnt explain the irrational thinking of someone who is afraid

the cognitive approach would say faulty thinking is the route cause of phobias

Question 11

weakness: evolutionary theory says different

Answer 11

evolutionary theory would explain phobias as an innate and evolved reaction which is adaptive e.g fear of spiders