Phobias

Question 1

what are the three types of phobias?

Answer 1

1. social phobias which are an excessive fear of being observed by other people eg fear of public speaking
2. specific phobias which are less disruptive than other phobias but common in childhood such as arachnophobia
3. agoraphobia which is fear of public spaces such as fear of going out

Question 2

what are behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

• panic which is in a response to phobia eg crying or screaming
• avoidance- effort to avoid coming into contact with the phobia.
• endurance-remains in presence of phobia but experience high level of anxiety

Question 3

what are cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

• selective attention to the phobic stimulus such as if the phobia is hard to look away from and can’t concentrate on the task.
• irrational beliefs- eg social phobia hold belief such as if i talk people may laugh
• cognitive distortions- perception of phobia is distorted.

Question 4

what are emotional characteristics of Phobias?

Answer 4

anxiety and fear- phobia leads to fear or thought of it.

how are responses to phobias- unreasonable- response is widely disproportionate to threat posed.

Question 5

what is the two-process model?

Answer 5

it is where a phobia is acquired and learned through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning.

Question 6

how is a phobia acquired through classical conditioning?

Answer 6

classical conditioning involves association:
UCS triggers a fear response and the fear is UCR
the NS is associated then with the UCS which leads to UCR
the NS then becomes the CS producing fear and leads to the CR of fear.

Question 7

what did watson and raynor study with little albert?

Answer 7

that a fear can be conditioned.
for example,
1. whenever albert played with a white rat (NS) a loud bang (UCS) would be played close to his ear and the bang led to UCR.
2. the rat(NS) did not lead to UCR of fear until bang and rat paired multiple times and so association fear of bang which rat led to CS of rat.
3. albert then produced a fear response of CR every time he came into contact with rat CS

Question 8

what did watson and raynor study with little albert?

Answer 8

that a fear can be conditioned.
for example,
1. whenever albert played with a white rat (NS) a loud bang (

Question 9

what else happened when lil albert was showed other white furry objects and why?

Answer 9

it led to fear as due to stimulus generalisation which meant that the stimulus of the white rate and its fur was generalised to other related stimuli such as a white santa beard which then is associated with the fear and conditioned response.

Question 10

How are phobias maintained?

Answer 10

through operant conditioning as it takes place when our behaviour is reinforced. phobias use negative reinforcement to maintain the phobia as when a phobic avoids a phobic stimulus they escape the anxiety that would have been experienced and so the reduction in fear reinforces avoidance and so it maintains the phobia.

Question 11

what is a study that supports the behavioural approach to explaining phobias and so is a strength?

Answer 11

a study that supports the behavioural approach to explaining phobias is Bagby. they found that a women who got her foot stuck in a rock in a waterfall then developed a fear of waterfalls as she associated the pain in her foot to the waterfall. this supports the behavioural approach to explaining phobias as it shows the two-process model as with classical conditioning gained the fear of running water due to pain in her foot and maintained it through operant conditioning as she wanted to avoid running water. however, this is a case study and so not applicable to everyone and so can’t be generalised.

Question 12

what is a limitation of the two-process model in explaining phobias?

Answer 12

while sometimes phobias do appear after a bad experience such as bagby it might not always lead to a phobia. for example, sometimes people have a bad experience such as being bitten by a dog and don’t develop a phobia- DiNardo et al. this suggests that conditioning alone can’t explain phobias. they may only develop when a vulnerability exists.

Question 13

what is a strength of the behavioural explanation of phobia?

Answer 13

it has a practical explanation and good explanatory power as the important implications for therapy such as systematic desensitisation as if their avoidance behaviour is prevented then the phobic behaviour declines, this application to therapy is a strength of the two-process model.

Question 14

what is systematic desensitisation?

Answer 14

it is based on classical conditioning and counter-conditioning which is the idea that you can learn a new response to your conditioning.

Question 15

what does reciprocal inhibition mean?

Answer 15

it is not possible to be afraid and relaxed at the same time and can not co-exist and so one emotion prevents the other

Question 16

what is the aim of systematic desenseitisation?

Answer 16

it is to gradually reduce the anxiety through counter-conditioning. the cs which is the phobia is paired with relaxation and this this becomes the cr and so it is no longer fear but relaxation.

Question 17

what are the 3 steps of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 17

1. they imagine exposure increasingly replaced by actual exposure by creating an anxiety hierarchy- patient and therapist design an hierarchy, list of fearful stimuli arranged in order from least to most feared. eg a picture of spider low on list but holding one high.
2. relaxation- patient taught to relax as deeply as possible eg with meditation, breathing exercises, and is practised at each level after each level completed of anxiety hierarchy, phobia is exposed in relaxed state.
3. there is gradual exposure- exposed to each stage while relaxing, successful treatment means in relaxed state at situation at top of hierarchy.

Question 18

what is flooding?

Answer 18

flooding involves no gradual build up but immediate exposure to the phobic stimulus, the patient is prevented from escaping eg people with arachnophobia have spider crawl on hand until they can relax fully. they often just need one session of 2-3 hours.

Question 19

what quickly happens to the learning response due to phobias?

Answer 19

without the option to avoid the phobia, the patient quickly learns that the phobic object is harmless and so due to the exhaustion of their fear response it leads to extinction.

Question 20

what is research support for Systematic desensitisation that suggests it is effective?

Answer 20

a study that supports gilroy et al who followed up 42 patients who had sd for a spider phobia in three 45 minute sessions. at both three and 33 months the sd group were less fearful than the control group treated by relaxation without exposure. this is a strength because it shows SD is helpful in reducing the anxiety in spider phobia and that the effects of the treatment are long-lasting. however, this may not be applicable to all phobias as just did spider and so may not be generalisable.

Question 21

what is a strength of systematic desensitisation?

Answer 21

a strength is that SD is suitable for a diverse range of patients. the alternatives to SD such as flooding are not well suited to some patients. for example, people with learning difficulties can make it very hard for some patients to understand what is happening during flooding which means that for these patients SD is most appropriate treatment.

Question 22

what is a limitation of flooding?

Answer 22

it is less effective for some type of phobias. although flooding is highly effective for treating specific phobias but it appears to be less effective for more complex phobias like social phobias. this can be due to the idea that social phobias have cognitive aspects such as a sufferer of social phobia doesn’t simply experience anxiety but think unpleasant thought about social situation. this type of phobia may benefit more from cognitive therapies to tackle irrational thoughts.

Question 23

what is a further limitation of flooding which concerns ethical issues?

Answer 23

flooding is highly traumatic experience for the patients as the problem is not that flooding is unethical as patients give informed consent but patients are often unwilling to see it through to the end. this is a limitation as it means that the treatment is not effective and so time and money is wasted as they prepare patients to have them refuse to start or complete treatment.