p1 - psychopathology (phobias). ✔️

Question 1

What is a phobia?

Answer 1

• Extreme fear. Irrational and disproportionate to the threat it poses.
• 3 types: specific, social and agoraphobia.

Question 2

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

• Fear, anxiety.
• Excessive and unreasonable.
• Panic.

Question 3

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

• Fight or flight.
• Freeze or faint.
• Avoidance.
• Endurance.
• Panic.

Question 4

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 4

• Irrational thinking (not logical).
• Resist rational arguments.
• Recognising the fear is unreasonable.
• Cognitive distortions.
• Selective attention.

Question 5

What approach is used to explain and treat phobias?

Answer 5

Behaviourist.
Behaviour is learned through interacting with environment, from experience.

Question 6

What is Mowrers’ two-process model?

Answer 6

• Phobias acquired through classical conditioning (association).
• Phobias maintained through operant conditioning (consequences/reinforcement).

Question 7

Explain phobias being acquired through classical conditioning?

Answer 7

• Phobic object (neutral stimulus) → No response.
• Phobic object (neutral stimulus) + Unconditioned stimulus → Unconditioned response (fear).
• Phobic object (conditioned stimulus) → Conditioned response (fear).
• Phobias can be generalised. Conditioned fear response can be experienced from similar stimuli.
• Negative experience occurs with phobic object.

Question 8

Explain phobias being maintained through operant conditioning?

Answer 8

• Phobia reinforced.
• Avoiding = Negatively reinforced.

Question 9

On the whole, phobias are…

Answer 9

…learned.

Question 10

Advantages of behaviourist explanation of phobias?

Answer 10

• Research support.
  E - Little Albert. Rat → No response. Rat + Bang → Fear. Rat → Fear.
  E - Suggests phobias are learned through association.
• Research support.
  E - Barlow + Durand = Driving phobia. 50% of people reported traumatic experience had caused onset of phobia.
  E - Suggests phobias are learned.
• Practical application.
  E - Behavioural treatments → Unlearn behaviour.
  E - Useful.

Question 11

Disadvantages of behaviourist explanation of phobias?

Answer 11

• Problems with research support.
  E - Little Albert, bias sample, 1 person, case study.
  E - Cannot generalise.
• Research refuting.
  E - Menzie + Clarke = Water phobia, 2% of child participants had negative experiences with water.
  E - Suggests phobias are not learned. Decreases validity.
• Alternative explanation.
  E - Evolutionary. People display phobias to more uncommon things (snakes) instead of common things (knives). Phobias occur from evolutionary dangers our ancestors faced.
  E - Suggests phobias are hereditary.

Question 12

What are the two behaviourist treatments for phobias?

Answer 12

• Systematic desensitisation.
• Flooding.

Question 13

What is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 13

• Uses the principle of classical conditioning.
• A new response is learned (counterconditioning).
• Works on the principle that it is impossible to be afraid and relaxed at the same time.
• One emotion prevents the other (reciprocal inhibition).
• Uses an anxiety hierarchy.
• Gradual exposure.

Question 14

What are the systematic desensitisation steps?

Answer 14

1. Patient is taught how to relax their muscles completely.
2. Therapist and patient construct a desensitisation/anxiety hierarchy - each scenario causes a little more anxiety than the previous one.
3. For example, shown a picture of a spider, and then a video of a spider, until eventually they let a spider crawl on them.
4. Once the patient has mastered one step in the hierarchy (remaining relaxed), they can move onto the next one.
5. Patient eventually masters the feared situation.

Question 15

On the whole, systematic desensitisation is…

Answer 15

…teaching a new response through classical conditioning.

Question 16

Advantages of systematic densensitisation?

Answer 16

• Research support.
  E - Gilroy et al, 2003. Followed up 42 patients who had spider phobias and were treated with three 45-minute sessions of systematic desensitisation. Assessed by the ‘Spider questionnaire’ and compared to a control group who were only treated by relaxation without exposure. At both 3 and 33 months, the treated group were less fearful than the relaxation group.
  E - Shows that systematic desensitisation is effective, and appropriate when treating spider phobias.
• Less traumatic than flooding.
  E - Gradual exposure, whereas flooding is about being immediately exposed to the phobic object.
  E - More appropriate, more ethical. Causes less psychological harm.

Question 17

Disadvantages of systematic densensitisation?

Answer 17

• Individual differences.
  E - Does not work for everyone. Some people may not be able to progress through the stages.
  E - Not always appropriate and effective.
• Does not work for every phobia.
  E - Would not work for phobias like social phobias. Relies on the idea that phobias come from past negative experiences, however they could be from evolution and so therefore counterconditioning is not possible.
  E - Not appropriate for every phobia.

Question 18

What is flooding?

Answer 18

• Immediate exposure.
• Prevents avoidant behaviour so the patient realises the phobic stimulus is harmless.
• This process is called extinction.
• Learned response is extinguished when the conditioned stimulus (e.g. a dog) is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus (e.g. being bitten).
• The conditioned stimulus no longer produces the conditioned response (fear).
• Relaxation may be achieved due to exhaustion from own fear response.
• Flooding sessions are typically longer than s.d, however require less sessions to cure phobia.

Question 19

Advantages of flooding?

Answer 19

• Cost-effective.
  E - Ougrin, 2011, found flooding to be quicker and highly effective compared to alternatives. Individual sessions are longer, however often only one session is needed to cure a phobia.
  E - Patients are free from their symptoms as soon as possible, making the treatment cheaper.

Question 20

Disadvantages of flooding?

Answer 20

• Less effective for some types of phobias.
  E - Effective for simple phobias, however less so for more complex phobias, like social phobias. May be due to cognitive aspects, as there is not only an anxiety response, but also unpleasant thoughts towards the situation.
  E - These types of phobias could benefit more from cognitive therapies that tackle irrational thinking.
• Traumatic.
  E - Patients are often unwilling to see it through to the end.
  E - Time and money are wasted preparing patients, only for them to refuse to start or complete treatment.