Psychopathology - Behavioural approach to Phobias Flashcards
What are the key assumptions/ideas of the behavioural approach to phobias?
- argues that phobias, fear and avoidance behaviours are
LEARNED as a result of frightening experience/s - argues that consequently phobias can be UNLEARNED through
behavioural therapies
What is Mowrer’s two-process model?
- there are two processes involved in a acquiring a phobia
- Classical Conditioning
- person learns to associate phobic object with fear
- Operant Conditioning
- person learns to avoid or escape from the object through
reinforcement
- person learns to avoid or escape from the object through
What is classical condition in relation to phobias?
Phobia is acquired through association
- certain situation or object is ASSOCIATED with a frightening experience.
- This causes the stimulus to trigger feelings of fear and anxiety
UCS (choking) > UCR (fear)
NS (button)
CS (button) > CR (fear)
How are phobic behaviours learned & maintained?
Operant conditioning:
- Behaviours become stronger when they are reinforced.
e.g. When people get away from a phobic the stimulus,
their fear reduces. This reinforces avoidant behaviour.
(negatively)
- Negative reinforcement maintains the phoned as there is
no exposure to the stimulus, so the phobia cannot be
extinguished.
How are phobias generalised?
Sometimes the fear of one stimulus will generalise to other objects or situations that are similar to the one that originally generated fear.
= STIMULUS GENERALISATION
What is observational (social) learning of phobias?
- people can learn to be afraid indirectly by
witnessing other people experiencing intense
fear
e.g. A child seeing their parent afraid of spiders
- fear learned through OBSERVATION =
Vicarious Learning
Evidence to support the role of Classical Conditioning in phobias
Watson & Rayner: Little Albert
- baby learned to be afraid of rat when hearing
loud noise (not initially scared)
- fear seemed to generalise to other animals
Evidence from patient surveys
- people with phobias often remember possible
trigger, 'conditioning event'
- 50% of people with driving phobia
remember traumatic driving incident
(Barlow & Durand)
- 50% people with dog phobia recalled
incident with dog (DiNardo)
Evidence for the role of Operant Conditioning in phobias
Mowrer: Rats
- classically conditioned rats to fear the sound
of a buzzer by pairing with electric shock
- rats quickly jumped over barrier whenever
they heard the buzzer
- jumping behaviour = avoidant,negatively
reinforced by reduction in fear
Evidence for observational learning of fear
Bandura & Rosenthal
- participants observed people receiving
‘shocks’ at the sound of a buzzer
- then showed emotional signs of fear at sound
of buzzer despite receiving no shocks
themselves
- supports vicarious learning of fear
Ost & Hugdal
- reported case of boy who acquired fear of
vomiting after witnessing his grandfather
vomit whilst dying
Mineka: Monkeys
- infant monkeys could acquire a fear of snakes
after seeing parents afraid of snakes
Strengths of the behavioural explanation of phobias
- Considerable & consistent evidence on role
of conditioning from a range of different
studies
(reliability & validity of theory) - impact on exposure based treatments with
proven effectiveness
(validity of underlying theory) - high face validity - many people do recall an
event linked to their fear, straightforward and
makes sense to patients
Weaknesses of the behavioural explanation of phobias
- not everyone who has a frightening
experience develops a phobia - cannot
explain why - some people with phobias CAN’T recall a
triggering event
(but poor childhood memory) - doesn’t account for influence of
cognitions (thoughts)- phobias may be caused by distorted
thinking, not DIRECT experience
- phobias may be caused by distorted
- Cannot explain why some phobias are more
common than others (e.g. spiders vs light
switches) - there may be a link and interaction with
biological factors as well as learning
experiences - explanation incomplete
Evidence that we may be biologically prepared to fear certain objects
Cook & Mineka: Monkeys
- compared how quickly monkeys could learn
to fear snakes or rabbits
- baby monkeys quickly learned to be afraid of
the snake but not the rabbit when they saw
their mother acting fearfully around both (had
seen neither before)
> monkeys in the wild also show fear of
snakes, this may be because they are
biologically prepared to learn to fear snakes
as they pose a threat to them
What do behavioural treatments generally involve & why?
exposure to the phobic stimulus
- to unlearn the association between the
stimulus & fear (EXTINCTION)
- person needs to encounter the thing they are
afraid of with no unpleasant event & be
prevented from running away
What does Extinction refer to in terms of phobias? How does it occur linking to classical & operant conditioning?
The gradual weakening of a conditioned response
C.conditioning = no longer association
O.Condtioning = phobic behaviours no longer
reinforced
What is systematic desensitisation & the steps?
Wolpe’s treatment method where relaxation techniques are paired with gradual exposure.
- Counter conditioning
- Patient trained in deep muscle relaxation
- P & Therapist draw up a fear hierarchy
- P gets into relaxed state
- asked to imagine or encounter first step on
hierarchy until they feel no more fear - move on to next step of hierarchy, then to
real life exposure - P given homework to do between sessions
What is “counter-conditioning”?
Where a phobic stimulus becomes associated with something other than fear (e.g. relaxation)
What is a graded fear hierarchy?
An ordered, graded list of things causing fear from the least anxiety caused to the most anxiety.
What aspects need to be taken into account when evaluating a therapy?
- Appropriateness
= must be confident that a therapy is
appropriate for the particular patient - Effectiveness
= should be research evidence comparing to
alternative therapy
Evidence for the effectiveness of systematic desensitisation
Gilroy: Spider phobia
- both computer-aided exposure and live
exposure treatments were more effective
than relaxation placebo in significantly
reducing phoenix symptoms
- improvements after exposure based
treatments were maintained after 3 & 33
months
Bronson & Thorpe: Technophobia
- patients treated with systematic
desensitisation showed significant reductions
in anxiety
- improvements appeared to be maintained
over time
Strengths & weaknesses of the appropriateness of systematic desensitisation
S:
- Acceptable to patients (controlled, gradual
exposure)
- Easier to explain than flooding (especially to
children & people with learning disabilities)
W:
- time consuming (takes place over several
weeks)
What is flooding?
A treatment method involving going to the top of someone’s fear hierarchy and exposing them to the thing they are most afraid of for a prolonged period of time.
- one session, controlled treatment that may
take several hours
How does flooding work?
If a patient stays with the phobic stimulus long enough without anything bad happening, their anxiety will peak and then start to come down
Evidence for the effectiveness of flooding
Barlow: comparison
- if a patient is willing to undergo flooding, it is
often just as effective as systematic
desensitisation
Wolpe: Case Study
- girl’s fear of driving was overcome after being
driven around for 4 hours until her intense
anxiety reduced
Teasdale: evidence review
- research suggests that to work, flooding must
expose the patient for a long time
Strengths & weakness of the appropriateness of flooding
S:
- can be a rapid & effective treatment for
patients willing to agree to it
W:
- Ethical issues raised as it is often very
distressing
- requires fully informed consent from the
patient - not appropriate for children or
people with dementia or learning difficulties - not very appropriate for social phobias which
involve distorted beliefs about what other
people are thinking (cognitive behaviour
therapy more suitable)
