phobias c+e

Question 1

What are the behavioral characteristics of phobias?

Answer 1

-panic
-avoidance
-endurance

Question 2

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

-anxiety
-fear
-unreasonable emotional response

Question 3

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

-selective attention
-irrational beliefs
-cognitive distortions

Question 4

How dos the behavioral approach to explaining phobias suggest phobias are acquired?

Answer 4

Classical Conditioning

Question 5

How dos the behavioral approach to explaining phobias suggest phobias are maintained?

Answer 5

Operant Conditioning

Question 6

What study showed how phobias can be acquired?

Answer 6

Watson and Reyner- Little Albert

Question 7

Explain how a phobia can be acquired according to the behavioral approach (use example)

Answer 7

Little Albert:
-This noise is an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) which creates an unconditioned response (UCR) of fear.
-When the rat (NS) and the UCS are encountered close together, in time the NS becomes associated with the UCS and both now produce the fear
response
-Albert displayed fear when he saw a rat (the NS).
-The rat is now a learned or
conditioned stimulus (CS) that produces a conditioned response (CR).

Question 8

Who explained how phobias are maintained/ long-lasting?

Answer 8

Mowrer

Question 9

What did Mowrer suggest about phobias?

Answer 9

Phobias are maintained through operant conditioning- both positive and negative conditioning

Question 10

Explain how a phobia is maintained according to the behavioral approach?

Answer 10

-Whenever we avoid a phobic stimulus, we successfully escape the fear and anxiety that we would have experienced if we had remained there. This reduction in fear negatively reinforces the avoidance behaviour and so the phobia ls maintained
-If we panic upon seeing a phobic stimulus and people fuss over you/ comfort you and deal with the phobic stimulus this is positive reinforcement (?)

Question 11

What is the negative reinforcement when a phobia is being maintained?

Answer 11

-avoiding phobic stimulus therefore removing unpleasant emotion like anxiety

Question 12

What is the positive reinforcement when a phobia is being maintained?

Answer 12

-being comforted by others after showing fear of the phobic stimulus

Question 13

What are the strengths of the behavioral explanations for phobias?

Answer 13

-real-world application
-evidence for a link between bad
experiences and phobias.

Question 14

What are the limitation of the behavioral explanations for phobias?

Answer 14

-does not account for the cognitive aspects of phobias
-not all phobias appear to follow a bad experience

Question 15

Explain the strength of the behavioral explanations for phobias that there are real-world applications?

Answer 15

-Has application in exposure therapies
-The idea that phobias
are maintained by avoidance of the phobic stimulus explains why people with phobias benefit from being exposed to the phobic stimulus.
-Once the avoidance behaviour is prevented it stops being reinforced by the experience of anxiety reduction and avoidance therefore declines.
-In behavioural terms the phobia is the avoidance behaviour so when this avoidance is prevented, the phobia is
cured.
-This shows the value of the two-process approach because it identifies a means of treating phobias.

Question 16

Explain the strength of the behavioral explanations for phobias that there is evidence for a link between bad experiences and phobias?

Answer 16

The Little Albert study illustrates how a frightening experience involving a stimulus can lead to a phobia
-Ad De Jongh (2006) found that 73% of people with a fear of dental treatment had experienced a traumatic experience, mostly involving dentistry (others had
experienced being the victim of violent crime).
-This can be compared to a control group of people with low dental anxiety
where only 21% had experienced a traumatic event.
-This confirms that the association between stimulus (dentistry) and an unconditioned response (pain) does lead to the development of the phobia.

Question 17

Explain the limitation of the behavioral explanations for phobias that it does not account for the cognitive aspects of
phobias?

Answer 17

-Behavioural explanations are geared towards explaining behaviour.
-In the case of phobias, the key behaviour is avoidance of the phobic stimulus.
-However, we know that phobias are not simply avoidance responses - they also have a significant cognitive component.
-For example, people hold irrational beliefs about the phobic stimulus (such as thinking that a spider is dangerous).
-The two-process model explains
avoidance behaviour but does not offer an adequate explanation for phobic cognitions.
-This means that the two-process model does not completely explain the symptoms of phobias.

Question 18

Explain the limitation of the behavioral explanations for phobias that not all phobias appear to follow a bad experience?

Answer 18

-In fact, some common phobias such as snake phobias occur in populations where very few people have any experience of snakes at all let alone traumatic experiences.
-Also, not all frightening experiences lead to phobias.
-This means that the association between phobias and frightening experiences is not as strong as we would expect if behavioural theories provided a complete explanation.