Phobias

Question 1

what approach is used to explain phobias?

Answer 1

behavioural

Question 2

what are the behavioural symptoms of phobias?

Answer 2

-avoidant/anxiety response
-disruption of functioning

Question 3

what are the emotional symptoms of phobias?

Answer 3

-persistent, excessive fear
-fear from exposure to phobic stimulus

Question 4

what are the cognitive symptoms of phobias?

Answer 4

-recognition of exaggerated anxiety

Question 5

what are the 3 sub-types of phobias?

Answer 5

-simple phobias
-social phobias
-agoraphobia

Question 6

what are simple phobias?

Answer 6

-sufferers have fears of specific things and environments
-can be further divided into: animal phobias, injury phobias, situational phobias, natural environment phobias

Question 7

what are social phobias?

Answer 7

-being over-anxious in social situations
-involve the perception of being judged/ feeling inadequate
-make conducting meaningful relationships difficult
-divisible into: performance phobias, interaction phobias and generalised phobias

Question 8

what is agoraphobia?

Answer 8

-fear of leaving home/safe space
-can be due to fear of contamination or social embarrassment

Question 9

how does the behavioural approach explain phobias?

Answer 9

the two process model
classical conditioning
operant conditioning

Question 10

what is the two process model? how does it explain phobias?

Answer 10

-two stages:
-the acquisition of phobias (directly through classical conditioning, eg traumatic event, or through observing another / hearing about it)
-the maintenance of phobias (operant conditioning, avoiding objects/situations is a negative reinforcer)

Question 11

how does classical conditioning explain phobias?

Answer 11

-pavlov
-natural response that causes fear becomes associated with a neutral stimulus, eg pairing night time with a frightening experience likely being mugged, makes you scared of the dark

Question 12

how does operant conditioning explain phobias?

Answer 12

-avoidance responses act as a negative reinforcer

Question 13

what was the ‘little albert’ research?

Answer 13

-watson and rayner 1920
-used the principles of classical conditioning to make an 11 m/o scared of white rats
-UCS = loud noise. UCR = fear
-NS = white rat + UCS = UCR
-CS = white rat, CR = fear
-albert was scared of any other small fluffy white things
-extent of albert’s fear responses is disputed, can’t replicate the study now because it would be unethical

Question 14

what is some research on behavioural explanation for phobias?

Answer 14

-Di Gallo 1996 - 20% of people who are in traumatic car accidents develop a phobia of travelling in cars, (CC) and avoid getting in them (OC)

Question 15

evaluate the behavioural explanation of phobias

Answer 15

-rachman 1984 - the safety signals hypothesis - avoidance responses reduce the chances of exposure to phobia aren’t motivated by a reduction of anxiety, but by the positive feelings associated with safe spaces
-bounton 2007 - 2 process model neglects the influence of evolution history, where avoidance responses were learned more rapidly if the required response resembles an animals natural defensive behaviour
-effectiveness of treatments leads to support for the explanation
-not everyone experiences traumatic events that cause their phobia
-can be combined with biological explanation, eg genetic vulnerability

Question 16

what is the cognitive explanation for phobias?

Answer 16

-phobias have an attentional bias to focus more on anxiety generating stimuli
-maladaptive thoughts/ beliefs about a stimuli
-tomarken et al 1989 - showed people with snake phobias slides of snakes and neutral objects, then asked them to recall how many snakes, trees etc they saw, they significantly overestimated the number of snakes
-unlike the behavioural explanation, it details the thought processes behind phobias,
-can explain how they’re maintained but not how they’re created

Question 17

what is the evolutionary explanation for phobias?

Answer 17

-phobias have an adaptive survival value
-garcia + koelling 1966 - rats quickly learned not to drink sweet tasting liquid (injection that made them sick), not as quick when the liquid was paired with an electric shock, as they aren’t apparent in the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness (EEA)
-explains adaptive functions that behaviourists can’t
-biological preparedness sees animals as having a ability to display certain fears because they have an adaptive value, eg fear of snakes that would have been very useful in the pleistocene era