Phobias

Question 1

What are the behavioural characteristics of phobias?

Answer 1

1. Panic:
   - Can involve crying, screaming, running away.
   - For children, can involve freezing, clinging or having a tantrum.
2. Avoidance:
   - Can make it hard to go about every day life.
   - E.g. with the fear of public toilets, a person may limit how much time they spend away from home without having to use the bathroom.
3. Endurance:
   - Sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus but experiences high levels of anxiety.
   - Stimulus can be unavoidable in some situations.

Question 2

What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?

Answer 2

Anxiety:
- An unpleasant state of high arousal.
- Prevents relaxing and makes it difficult to experience any positive emotion.
- The emotional response in relation to the phobic stimuli is not reasonable.

Question 3

What are the cognitive characteristics of phobias?

Answer 3

1. Selective attention:
   - It is hard to look away from the phobic stimulus so the person can react quickly to a threat.
   - This is not useful if the fear is irrational.
2. Irrational beliefs:
   - E.g. social phobias can include beliefs such as “I must always sound intelligent”
   - This increases the pressure on the sufferer.
3. Cognitive distortions:
   - Perception of the phobic stimulus may be distorted.
   - A person can recognise that their fear is excessive/unreasonable, so this characteristic can be used to distinguish a phobia and delusional mental illness.

Question 4

How do behaviourist explain phobias?

Answer 4

1. Classical conditioning (Pavlov) - Explains how the phobia starts.
2. Operant conditioning (Skinner) - Explains how phobias are maintained.

Question 5

How does classical conditioning work?

Answer 5

1. Unconditioned Stimulus —> Unconditioned Response
2. Unconditioned Stimulus + Neutral Stimulus —> Unconditioned Response
3. Conditioned Stimulus —> Conditioned Response

Question 6

How does operant conditioning work?

Answer 6

• The phobia is reinforced when the stimulus is avoided, so there is negative reinforcement, so it is repeated.
• If the person gets attention for suffering with the phobia, this is rewarding, so there is positive reinforcement.
• When facing the stimulus, the person experiences fear so this is a punishment.

Question 7

Evaluate the behavioural explanation of phobias.

Answer 7

1. Tested scientifically:
   + Watson and Raymor showed how Little Albert was conditioned to develop a phobia of rats.
   + Gives support to the model.
   — The study has never been replicated, so we don’t know if this how phobias can be conditioned this way.
2. Importance of classical conditioning:
   + Large portion of people with phobias recall a specific incident.
   + Supports the role of classical conditioning.
   — Doesn’t take into account individual differences in people.
   — E.g. two people may get bit by a dog but only one of them develops a phobia despite having the same experience.
   — Ignores the mind and cognitive processes behind the behaviour.
3. No experience needed:
   — E.g. lots of British people have phobias of snakes despite never coming across one.
   — Doesn’t explain many people’s phobias.
   — Some biology is involved as Seligman argued that animals are genetically programmed to associate fear and a life-threatening fear.
   — Shows the behaviourist explanation is too simplistic.

Question 8

What are the two ways of treating phobias?

Answer 8

1. Systematic desensitisation.
2. Flooding.

Question 9

How does systematic desensitisation work?

Answer 9

Based on 3 processes:

1. Anxiety Hierarchy:
   - Therapist works with client to create a hierarchical list of feared situations
   - Start with situations that arouse the least anxiety to most.
2. Relaxation:
   - Client reaches a state of deep relaxation through breathing exercises, mental imagery techniques and meditation.
3. Exposure:
   - Client is asked to imagine of confronted by the least threatening situation known the anxiety hierarchy.
   - Repeated until the last situation fails to provoke the client.
   - Can only move onto the next stage of the hierarchy if they manage to stay calm at the previous stage.

Question 10

Evaluate systematic desensitisation.

Answer 10

1. Effective Treatment:
   + Comes from research evidence.
   + McGrath et al found 75% of patients were treated using systematic desensitisation.
   + Furthermore, Gilroy et al examined 42 patients. Each patient was treated with three 45 minute systematic desensitisation sessions.
   + When examined 3 months and 33 months later, the systematic desensitisation group were less fearful than the control group.
   + Provides support for it as a long-term treatment.
2. Not effective for all phobias:
   — Not so effective for phobias of situations or concepts, such as the number 13.
   — Not always effective.
   + Virtual reality is now helping to apply systematic desensitisation to situations that are difficult to set up in a therapy session.
3. Diverse range of patients:
   + Some phobia sufferers also have learning difficulties.
   + Learning difficulties can make it soffit to understand what is happening in flooding, so systematic desensitisation is more appropriate.
   — Behaviourist approach focuses on animal studies such as Pavlov and Skinner.
   — Humans don’t express anxiety in the same way as animals, so it questions the validity of supporting research.

Question 11

How does flooding work?

Answer 11

• Client is exposed to an extremely fear-provoking situation, often repeatedly.
  -Client is flooded/overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, but it is physiologically impossible to maintain the state for a long period of time.
• The fear starts to diminish some time later.

Question 12

Evaluate flooding.

Answer 12

1. Supporting research:
   + Hogen and Kirchner studied 21 people with a phobia of rats and were asked to imagine being clawed and nibbled by rats. After treatment, 20 were able to open a rats cage and 14 could pick it up.
   + Suggests the therapy is effective.
   — One phobia may be removed but another may appear in its place. This is called symptom substitution.
2. Cost effective:
   + Highly effective and quicker than alternatives.
   + Patients are free from symptoms as soon as possible so treatment is cheaper for NHS or patient if they are paying private.
   — Less effective for some phobias such as complex phobias like social phobias.
   — Cannot be used for all phobias.
3. Ethics:
   — Can be dramatic for the patient as it creates extraordinarily high levels of anxiety.
   — Wolpe recorded a case where a priest became so anxious she required hospitalisation.
   — Many clients don’t complete their treatment due to high levels of stress endured.
   — Not as effective as patients don’t complete full course of treatment.
   + Could be argued it is ethical as the patient gives fully informed consent.