Task 2

Question 1

Specific anxiety disorder

Answer 1

• Fear for specific objects, stimuli or situations.
• Exposure or predicted exposure causes immediate fear or anxiety
• the phobic object or situation is actively avoided or endured with intense fear or anxiety.
• Fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the specific object or situation and the sociocultural context.
• The fear, anxiety, or avoidance is persistent, typically lasting for 6 months or more
• The fear, anxiety or avoidance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
• Disturbance not better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder, including fear, anxiety and avoidance of situations associated with panic-like symptoms or other incapacitating symptoms (as in agoraphobia)

Question 2

Treatment (exposure)

Answer 2

Exposure: in vivo exposure –> patients are confronted with an individualized hierarchy of feared situations.

Question 3

Treatment (Applied relaxation)

Answer 3

This technique follows the principle of the progressive relaxation technique, by brief sequences of tensing of skeletal muscle groups followed by release of tension.

Question 4

Treatment (Applied tension)

Answer 4

combines muscle tension with in vivo exposure. During exposure, the technique would be applied at the first signs of a drop in blood pressure, with part of the sessions geared towards teaching interception of these early warning signs of faintness.

Question 5

Treatment (tension only)

Answer 5

practice tension in arms, legs, and torso muscles in order to be able to raise blood pressure at will. Patients were not exposed to BII stimuli in the treatment session.

Question 6

Subtypes specific phobia

Answer 6

• Animal: fear/anxiety caused by spiders. snakes. mouses etc.
• Blood injection injury: caused by seeing bloed, open wounds, medical procedures and receiving injections.
• Situational: characterized by strong cognitive symptoms and concerns such as losing control, going crazy, or suffocating, accompanied by a very strong urge to escape.
• Natural environment: (thunderstorms, tornados, heights, dark) characterized by symptom reports of dizziness (in the case of fear of heights) and strong avoidance dispositions often accompanied by central concerns about the potential danger of the situation.

Question 7

Two factor model of Mowrer

Answer 7

Theory says that anxiety disorders are the result of 2 important factors: classical conditioning and operant conditioning.

Classical conditioning: process where a neural stimuli is being associated with an anxiety response by repeated exposure. e.g. when someone experiences an panic attack in a specific situation, then the specific situation can be a conditioned stimulus for the anxiety. In the future, only the presence of the situation can provoke the fear response.

Operant conditioning: process where ones behavior will be influenced by the consequences of that behavior. If someone avoids the situation that will make them anxious, they will be rewarded (not being anxious). therefore the response will be strengthened and will the tendency to avoid the situation also be strengthened.

Two factor model proposes that anxiety disorders are created and maintained by a combination of these two processes.
classical conditioning creates the anxiety: predictability –> the individual learns the predict what will happen when the stimulus appears

operant conditioning will maintain the anxiety disorder.
controllability: the individual gets control over the fear

Question 8

Criticism of conditioning as an explanation for phobias

Answer 8

• Some phobics can’t recall an aversive conditioning experience at the beginning of the phobia.
• Not all people that experience trauma/ anxiety develop a phobia.
• there is an uneven distribution of fears
• Anxiety can also be developed by indirect pathways.

Question 9

equipotentionality

Answer 9

Every predictor can be associated with every outcome.

Question 10

Extinction

Answer 10

effect that if a predictor (CS) is presented without the outcome after a response, the strength of the response will decrease till the CS won’t elicit a CR.
- extinction is CS-noUCS learning, the CS-noUCS association will be stronger than the CS-UCS association, but the CS-UCS association will still exist.

Question 11

Second order conditioning

Answer 11

Not only do you learn to associate the barking of a dog (CS) with biting (UCS). you can also learn that other stimuli can predict the CS. for instance, you notice that before you hear a dog bark, you hear an owner whistle (CS). the next time you hear a whistle (CS) you feel your heart pounding (CR) even if you do not hear a dog barking (CS).

CS1 (whistle) –> CS2 (barking of dog) –> CR (bodily response of fear/ anxiety)
CS1 (whistle) –> CR (bodily response of fear/anxiety)

Question 12

Occasion setting or feature modulation

Answer 12

This indicates the context in which you can expect the UCS following the CS –> only triggered in certain contexts.

Positive occasion setting –> trigger (learned CS-UCS)
Negatieve occasion setting –> no trigger.

Question 13

Counterconditioning

Answer 13

A treatment procedure. Instead of training CS-noUCS you can also train the CS to predict another physiological reaction that is the opposite of the UCR. A physiological state that is opposite to fear is relaxation. In treatment it has been common to train patients to relax with intensive relaxation procedures. They learn a CS-relaxation association that counters the CS-UCS association.