Phobias: Learning explanations Flashcards
1
Q
Acquisition
A
- The process of getting or developing something, in this case a phobia
2
Q
Maintenance
A
- The process of something keep on continuing
3
Q
Acquisition of phobias by classical conditioning
A
- Learning to associate one stimulus with another stimulus
- One stimulus doesn’t create fear while the other stimulus already creates a fear response
- Through association the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus producing a conditioned response of fear
4
Q
Maintenance by operant conditioning
A
- Operant conditioning takes place when behaviour is reinforced
- Reinforcement increases the frequency of the behaviour
- Negative reinforcement takes place when a behaviour is rewarded by the removal of something unpleasant like anxiety
5
Q
Strength of learning theories as an explanation of phobia
A
- A strength is that there is a lot of supporting evidence from humans and animal studies
- Evidence that humans can acquire fear responses to non threatening objects comes from Watson and Rayner’s study of little Albert where he learned to fear white furry objects through classical conditioning
- Mowrer’s studies of rats also demonstrated that animals can maintain and avoidance behaviour towards aversive stimuli as this would provide negative reinforcement when the anxiety is reduced
- This suggests that even though learning theories don’t provide a full explanation for phobias learning does take place in some cases
6
Q
Weakness of learning theories as an explanation of phobia
A
- One weakness is that Learning Theories cannot explain some phenomena associated with the acquisition of phobias
- Researcher have found that we acquire certain phobias more easily that others
- Fear of snakes or the dark is more easily acquired than a fear of cars
- This suggested that we are pre programmed to acquire fear of things which were hazardous in our evolutionary past
- This suggests the learning is an incomplete explanation for phobias as there may be an evolutionary component
