the behvioural approach to explaining phobias

Question 1

what is Mowrer’s two process model 1960

Answer 1

phobias are learnt through classical conditioning and then maintained by operant conditioning

Question 2

how is phobias acquired by classical conditioning

Answer 2

association
1. UCS triggers a fear response (UCR) e.g. being bitten creates anxiety
2. NS is associated with the UCS e.g. being bitten by a dog, dog previously did not create anxiety
3. NS becomes CS producing fear (CR) e.g dog becomes CS causing CR of anxiety following the bite

Question 3

how is phobias maintained by operant conditioning

Answer 3

negative reinforcement
if someone has a morbid fear of german shepards they will avoid all dogs, they’re scared that they will be one of them. the fear of german shepards have been generalised to all types of dogs

the relief felt towards avoiding dogs negatively reinforced the phobia and ensured it is maintained rather than confronted

Question 4

strength of mowrer’s two process theory

Answer 4

P: however, evidence from human animals suggests this criticism maybe unfounded

E: watson and raynor (1920) used classical conditioning of a phobias in human participant little albert. they conditioned him to fear a white rat by making a loud noise by his ear several times when he sees the rat. they also found that his fear of rats was generalised to other white furry objects

A: therefore, this study with a human participants also produced the same results with mowrer’s rats, hence his experiment is valid

C: this means that mowrer’s theory about how phobias are acquired by classical conditioning and would be generalised to other stimulus is valid

E: however, watson and raynor’s study was an idiographic one with a single participant which may lack generalisability, little albert could already be quite scared beforehand which affects the validity of this finding so we need to have some nomothetic evidence to back this up

E: Jongh et al (2006) found that 73% of dental phobics have experiences trauma mostly in dentistry. 21% of the control group, people with low dental anxiety had experiences. traumatic event

A: this finding supports the role of classical conditioning in acquiring a phobia as the association between the stimulus (dentistry) and an unconditioned response (pain) does lead to phobia

C: therefore there is valid support for the onset of phobias resulting from a traumatic event

E: this means we can we can use classical condionting to disassociate that phobia

Question 5

weakness of mower’s two process theory

Answer 5

P: representativity

E: issue with using rats to develop and test his theory is the problem of representativity of findings in support of traumatic cause in phobias

A: if more conditioned stimulus are operating, the result is stronger avoidance which develops easier and is more resistant to extinction as if fear is associated only with one stimulus but in humans avoidance is not only conditioned by environment but also what people imagine or feel in a given moment so animals and humans are different when it comes to learning

C: this is a problem because it reduces the validity of the evidence in support as it is not necessarily representative of human behaviour which is more complex involving internal stimuli

E: this matters because it means it can only be generalised with caution and its possible we need to include other factors such as cognitive ones like irrational beliefs in our explanation of phobias

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P: environmentally reductionist

E: reducing the complexity of human behaviour down to its simplest or smallest part in order to understand the complexity of the whole, breaking down phobias into simple environmental stimulus is an oversimplification

A: behaviourist approach cannot adequately explain the role of selective attention a cognitive symptom : becker et al 2001 investigated attention bias in speech phobias using the emotional stroop test. he found that those with speech phobias did take longer to ink speech related words, implying that we do selectively attend to dangerous stimuli supporting the criticism that BA cannot adequately explain cognitive symptoms

C:Therefore, only provides a partial understanding and for a fuller understanding of how phobias are acquired and maintained.

E: The solution is that we may need to take a more eclectic or multiple level explanation because this accounts for some of the complexity of phobic behaviour.