Chapter 5 Flashcards
(169 cards)
Physiological component
involves changes in the autonomic nervous system that result in respiratory, cardiovascular, and muscular changes in the body (e.g., changes in breathing rate, heart rate, and muscle tone).
Cognitive Component
includes alterations in consciousness (e.g., in attention levels) and specific thoughts a person may have while experiencing a particular emotion. For example, it is common for individuals experiencing a panic attack to think “I’m going to die,” or for someone with social anxiety to think “I’m going to embarrass myself in front of everyone.”
Behavioural Responses
tend to be consequences of certain emotions and thoughts. For example, if Greg experiences a panic attack during his exam, he may feel compelled to leave the situation.
Anxiety
Is an affective state where an individual feels threatened by the potential occurrence of a future negative event
Anxiety Concerns
Future oritented
Fear
more “primitive” emotion and occurs in response to a real or perceived current threat.
-Not an anxiety symptom
- fear is “present oriented” in the sense that this emotion involves a reaction to something that is believed to be threatening at the present moment.
Fight or flight response
-Fear prompts a person to either flee from a dangerous situation or stand and fight
Panic vs Fear
Fear is an emotional response to an objective, current, and identifiable threat
Panic is an extreme fear rejection that is triggered even though there is nothing objectively threatening to be afraid of
Historical: Neurosis
Anxiety disorder classified together with somatoform and dissociative disorders
-Implie that the cause was presumed to be a disturbance in the central nervous system
Freud and Anxiety
-Important difference between fears and neurotic anxiety
-Neurotic anxiety= signal to the ego that an unacceptable drive (mainly sexual in nature) is pressing for conscious representation
-Anxiety was viewed as a signal to ensure that the ego takes defesnive action against internal pressures
Freud said that anxiety occurred
Due to defence mechanisms failed to repress painful memories, impulses, or thoughts
Anxiety related disorders fall into three categories
Anxiety disorders, Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders and trauma and stressor related disorders
Genetics and Anxiety
Twin studies showcase the fact that there is evidence that anxiety can be hereditary
Neuroanatomy and Neurotrasnmitters
1) Registry of sensory info at the thalamus, sent to amygdala
2)Amygdala, then area in the hypothalamus, and midbrain area, and then to the brain stem and spinal cord
3) Brain stem and spinal cord connect with the various autonomic (heart rate, blood pressure, etc) and behavioural (freezing or flight)
Fear system
Involves a subcortical network that can be aroused without the influence of complex cortical input
No neurotransmitter system has been found to dedicate to solely the expression of
Fear, anxiety, and panic
Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA)
Is the most pervasive inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain, and receptors for this neurotransmitter are well distributed along the neural fear circuit
Benzodiazephines
Class of anti-anxiety medications that operate primarily on GABA mediated inhibition of the fear system
Serotonin and norepinphrine systems
These systems serve general arousal regulatory functions in the central nervous system and many of the medications used in the management of anxiety disorders have serotonin and or norepinephrine based modes of action
Two factor theory= Mowrer
-Attempted to account for the acquisition of fears and maintenance of anxiety
Mowrer and fear
Fear develops through the process of classical conditioning and are maintained through operant conditioning
1) Neutral stimulus becomes paired with an inherently negative stimulus (frightening event
-Individual lessens this anxiety by avoiding the CS, a behaviour that is negatively reinforced through operant conditioning
Watson Little Albert
Fera of rat (CS) becam econtioned through pairing with a sudden loud noise (UCS)
-Avoid rats= less anxious
Avoidance
Effective through reducing a person’s anxiety in the short term but can serve to increase anxiety over the long haul
Flaw of Mowrer’s Two-factor theory
Does not explain phobias
-Not all fears develop through classical conditioning
-People can learn fears by observing the reactions of others (vicarious learning or modelling)
-Fears can develop by hearing fear-related information