Psychopathology - Phobias Flashcards
What are the behavioural characteristics of a phobia?
-Avoidance of the phobic object, displaying a panic response and failure to function, so not being able to complete normal tasks
What are the emotional characteristics of a phobia?
-High levels of anxiety which stops relaxation and fear
What are the cognitive characteristics of a phobia?
- Irrational beliefs about about phobic object, overstating potential dangers/importance
- Also a reduced cognitive capacity (Short term/in the presence of the phobic object)
How are phobias learnt, according to behaviourists?
- Behaviourists believe that phobias are learnt via experience
- The two-process model describes how phobias are acquired and maintained
How does the two-process model describe
how phobias are acquired and maintained?
The two-process model proposed by Mowrer suggests that a phobia is acquired through classical conditioning and is maintained due to operant conditioning
How is a phobia learnt through classical conditioning?
- In the acquisition of a phobia, classical conditioning suggests the phobic object changes from being a neutral stimulus with no fear response to a conditioned stimulus with a fear response
- This is done through association, as the person associates an unconditioned stimulus with a fear response
How are phobias maintained via operant conditioning?
- Phobias are maintained by negative reinforcement according to operant conditioning
- The individual avoids situations with the phobic object, this causes a pleasurable effect on them as their anxiety is reduced
How can phobias be learnt vicariously?
- According to social learning theory principles, phobias may also be learnt vicariously from observing models
- This could be from a child observing their parents being afraid of something so the child vicariously learns to be afraid of the phobic object
How does Watson and Rayner’s study with “Little Albert” support the theory that phobias are learnt?
-Watson and Rayner showed that phobias could be induced in a child by making a loud noise when presenting a rat to a child
What was the experiment that Watson and Rayner conducted to support the two-process model?
- Watson and Raynor presented Little Albert with a white rat and he showed no fear
- Watson then presented the rat with a loud bang that startled Little Albert and made him cry
- After the continuous association of the white rat and loud noise, Little Albert was classically conditioned to experience fear at the sight of the rat
- Albert’s fear generalized to other stimuli that were similar to the rat, including a fur coat, some cotton wool, and a Father Christmas mask
How does Menzies and Clarke’s study on children with the fear of water oppose the behaviourist explanation of how phobias are learnt?
- Menzies and Clarke asked children with a fear of water, whether they could recall a traumatic experience with water
- Only 2% of children could recall a traumatic event
- This suggests that the behaviourist explanation of how phobias are learnt cannot account for all phobias
- This is because most of the children were not conditioned in the way behaviourists explain as they did not associate water with a negative stimulus from a traumatic event
- This could mean that instead of learning the phobia through associating the phobic object with a negative stimulus, they may have developed the phobia in another way
How do evolutionary factors oppose the behaviourists theory that all phobias are learnt?
-Common phobias for snakes, birds and dogs are understandable from an evolutionary perspective suggesting an innate biological origin
What is an advantage of the behaviourists approach to explaining phobias?
-One advantage of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias is that behaviourist theories of phobia formation and maintenance have led to effective counter conditioning treatments
How do behavioural therapies counter condition phobias?
- Behavioural therapies counter condition phobias by replacing the fear association with a relaxation/calming association
- These therapies assume that the fear and relaxation as opposite emotions cannot co-exist
- This is called reciprocal inhibition
What is systematic desensitisation?
-Systematic desensitisation uses reverse counter-conditioning to help an individual to unlearn a maladaptive response to a situation or object, by eliciting another response (relaxation)
