Phobias Flashcards
(37 cards)
1
Q
Define ‘Phobia’
A
- An irrational fear of an object or situation
2
Q
What are all phobias characterised by?
A
- Excessive fear & anxiety
- Triggered by an object, place or situation
3
Q
What are the cateogories of phobia and related anxiety disorder in the DSM?
A
- Specific phobia
- Social anxiety (Social phobia)
- Agoraphobia
4
Q
What is a specific phobia?
A
- Phobia of an object, such as an animal or body part or a situation.
Such as flying or having an injection
5
Q
What is social anxiety (social phobia)?
A
- Phobia of a social situation.
such as a public speaking or using a public toilet
6
Q
What is agoraphobia?
A
- Phobia of being outside or in a public place.
7
Q
What are the 3 behavioural characterisitics of phobias?
A
- Panic
- Avoidance
- Endurance
8
Q
What is meant by the behavioural reaction ‘panic’?
A
- A person with a phobia may panic in response to the prescence of the phobic stimulus
- Panic may involve a range of behaviours including crying, screaming or running away
Children may react slightly differently, e.g. clinging or having a tantrum.
9
Q
What is meant by the behavioural response ‘avoidance’?
A
- Unless the person is making a conscious effort to face their fear they tend to go a lot of effort to preventing coming into contact with a phobic stimulus
- This can make it hard to go about daily life
10
Q
What is meant by the behavioural response ‘endurance’?
A
- Occurs when the person chooses to remain in the prescence of the phobic stimulus.
e.g. a person with arachnophobia might choose to remain in a room with a spider on the ceiling and keep a wary eye on it rather than leaving.
11
Q
What are the 3 emotional characterisitcs of phobias?
A
- Anxiety
- Fear
- Emotional response is unreasonable
12
Q
What is anxiety?
A
- Phobias are classed as anxiety disorders
- Have an unpleasant state of high arousal
13
Q
What is fear?
A
- The immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about a phobic stimulus
- Usually more intense but experience for shorter periods than anxiety.
14
Q
What is the emotional response being unreasonable?
A
- The anxiety or fear is much greater than is ‘normal’ and will disproportionate to any threat posed.
e.g. a person with arachnophobia will have a strong emotional response to a tiny spider. Whereas most people would respond in a less anxious way even to a poisinous spider
15
Q
What is the cognitive element of phobias concerned with?
A
- Concerned with the ways in which people process information.
- People with phobias process information about phobic stimuli differently from other objects or situations.
16
Q
What are the cognitive characterisitcs of phobias?
A
- Selective attention- to the source of the phobia; often when the person is near the phobia, they cannot focus on anything else
- Usually keeping your attention on something dangerous gives you a higher chance of survival, this is not so, when the fear is irrational, such as with a phobia
- Cognitive distortions- The person’s perception of the phobia can often be distorted,
Someone who has a phobia of spiders can see the spider as aggressive and angry looking and may even feel that the spider is running toward them as if to attack
17
Q
How does the behavioural approach explain phobias?
A
- It is focused on explaining the behaviours created by the phobia & does not explain the cognitive or emotional features of phobias
18
Q
What is the two process model by Mowrer?
A
- Explanation for the onset & persistence of disorders that create anxiety, this includes phobias
- Had two stages
- Stage 1: Classical conditioning (learning by association)
- Stage 2: Operant conditioning (maintained by reinforcement)
Created by Mowrer
19
Q
What is the acquisition of phobias by classical conditioning?
A
- Phobic objects are at first a neutral stimulus (NS) and do not produce a phobic response
- However, if it is then presented with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), that produces an unconditioned response (UCR) then, the NS will become associated with the UCS & then the fear (phobia), will occur whenever the NS is there
- This means the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the UCR becomes the conditioned response (CR)
e.g. trapped in a lift- panic attack= association between that lift & anixety= classical conditioning
20
Q
How are phobias maintained by operant conditioning?
A
- If person avoids the phobic object/situation then anxiety is greatly reduced, which is rewarding for the sufferer
- Operant conditioning happens when behaviour is reinforced; by avoiding something unpleasant & being rewarded through not experiencing anxiety, we are reinforcing the avoidant behaviour
21
Q
Give one strength for the two process model.
A
- Real worl applicatin in exposure therapies (such as systematic desensitisation)
- Distinctive element of the two process model is the idea that phobias are maintained by avoidance of the phobic stimulus
- Important in explaining why people w phobias benefit from being exposed to the phobic stimulus
22
Q
Give an example of an acquisition of a phobia.
A
Watson & Rayner
Wanted to study the development of phobias
Conducted a lab experiment where they created a 9mo old baby called little Albert
23
Q
What was the procedure for the Little Albert Study?
A
- At the start of the study, Albert showed no unusual anxiety or worries about different objects
- Albert tried to play with a white rat when presented with it at the beginning
- However W&R wanted to give Albert a phobia & so whenever the white rat was presented to Albert, they made a loud, scary noise by banging an iron bar close to Albert’s ear
- The noise (UCS), created a fear response
- When the rat (NS) & the UCS were put together, they became associated & both then created the fear response
Albert started to display fear when he saw the rat (NS)
The rat then became the CS that produces the CR & the phobia had started
24
Q
What else did Watson & Rayner show?
A
- That the conditioned stimulus could be generalised to similar objects when they showed Albert other fluffy objects such as father christmas beard made from cotton wool & a fur coat
- Albert showed distress at all of these
- His phobia had become generalised
25
Give one disadvantage of the little Albert study
- Would not be able to take place today due to ethical guidelines & the psychological harm he was put under
26
What are the strengths of behavioural explanations of phobias?
Real world application
- Two process model has real world application - it explains using two distinctive elements how phobias are both created & maintained
- Watson & Rayners Little Albert study supports the two process model as they showed how a frightening experience can be conditioned
27
What are the weaknesses of behavioural explanations of phobias?
Cognitive aspects of phobias
- Two process model does not account for the cognitive processes associated w phobias
- Behavioural explanations focus on cause of of behaviours
- However cognitive components play a significant part in why someone has a phobia
- Not all phobias appear following a bad experience
28
What is the main behavioural treatment to overcome phobias?
Systematic Desensitisation
- Designed to slowly reduce the anxiety caused by the phobia using classical conditioning
- If patient can learn new response to the phobic stimulus, as well as learn to relax in presence of the phobia, then they will be cured
AND
Flooding
- A behavioural therapy in which a person w a phobia is exposed to an extreme form of a phobic stimulus in order to reduce anxiety triggered bythat stimulus.
- Takes place across a small number of long therapy sessions
29
Give the strengths and weaknesses of flooding.
Strengths
- Highly cost-effective
- Clinical effectiveness means how effective a therapy is at tackling symptoms
- Flooding can work in as little as one session as opposed to say 10 sessions for SD to achieve the same result.
- This makes flooding more cost effective
Weaknesses
- Its a highly unpleasant experience
- Confronting one's phobic stimulus in an extreme form provokes tremendous anxiety
- It raises ethical issues for psychologists of knowingly causing stress to their clients- this is not a serious issue provided they get informed consent
30
What are the three processes in systematic desnsitisation?
- Anxiety Hierarchy
- Relaxation
- Exposure
31
What is anxiety hierarchy?
- Patient & Therapist work together to construct an anxiety hierarchy,
- List of situations that involve the phobic stimulus from least to most frightening
32
What is relaxation?
- I is impossible to be afraid & relaxed at the same time & so the therapist teaches patient relaxation techniques
- This could be in form of breathing exercises or using imagining techniques, where patient imagines themselves in relaxing environment
- Could also include medication if needed to help the patient relax, such as Valium
33
What is exposure?
- Whilst in relaxed state patient is exposed to phobic stimulus starting at bottom of the hierarchy
- This is likely to take several sessions between patient & the therapist
Once the patient is comfortable and relaxed in the lower levels of the hierarchy, then they move up the scale
- The aim of treatment is to allow patient to be successful & move up to the top of the hierarchy, whilst remaining relaxed
34
What are the strengths of systematic desensitisation?
- Systematic desensitisation is a fast treatment & requires less effort than most other psychotherapies
- SD doesn't require a huge cognitive load and means the patients are less likely to become confused
- Has huge practical uses: Certain airlines use systematic desensitisation courses to help fearful flyers overcome their phobia
35
What are the weaknesses of systematic desensitisation?
- Systematic desensitisation doesn't treat the cause of the phobia, only the behaviour it causes - This may leave patient vulnerable to other phobias developing as real reason behind fear has yet to be uncovered (Psychodynamic theory)
- They cannot apply what they have learned to actual everyday situations
36
Give another positive evaluation point for phobias?
- Having an environmentally deterministic approach is good
- It shows causation due to external factors from environment.
- For phobias, when someone has a phobia it is because they have been classically conditioned to have specific fear of an object/environment.
- e.g.for someone who has arachnophobia, their fear of spiders developed through an action/ characteristic spider may have such as the scurrying of legs, this is an unconditioned stimulus, which then causes the individual to produce an unconditioned response (fear).
- This association of the UCS to the NS the fear spider later turns into a CR that the individual produces.
- Therefore, as a result of the environmentally deterministic view it allows us to counter condition those who suffer from phobias through methods such as systematic desensitisation & flooding which involves straight exposure of phobic stimulus, to help those individuals who have phobias continue to go about their day-to-day life.
37
Why may having a deterministic view be limiting for phobias?
- Can be limiting as it assumes we do not have free will.
- e.g in OCD a phobia may develop without conditioning & without experiencing a traumatic event, and instead it may in fact be our own internal thoughts which we have some form of control over that are contributing to the anxiety disorder.
- Furthermore, phobias don’t always occur after an event in the environment & that there may be other factors that contribute to this as well, making it difficult to identify one particular cause.
