Phobias And The Behavourist Approach To Explaining Phobias Flashcards
What does DSM stand for?
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Published by the American Psychiatric Association
What is the purpose of the DSM system?
Used for classifying and diagnosing mental health problems
Updated now and again
How is phobia defined?
Phobias = excessive fear and anxiety triggered by object, place or situation
Fear out of proportion to any real danger presented by the stimulus
What are the three categories of phobia in DSM-5?
- Specific phobia
- Social anxiety
- Agoraphobia
What are behavioural characteristics of phobias?
- Panic (crying etc)
- Avoidance (prevent contact with stimulus)
- Endurance (choosing to remain in presence of stimulus)
What are the emotional characteristics of phobias?
- Anxiety: unpleasant high arousal
- Fear: immediate and unpleasant response
- Response is unreasonable: disproportionate to the stimulus
What cognitive characteristics are associated with phobias?
- Selective attention (hard to look away from stimulus)
- Irrational beliefs (unfounded thoughts in relation to stimulus)
- Cognitive distortions (inaccurate/unrealistic perceptions of the stimulus)
What is the two-process model in behavioral psychology?
According to Mowrer, phobias are first acquired through classical conditioning and maintained by operant conditioning
What is classical conditioning in the context of phobias?
Learning to associate a neutral stimulus (something we have no fear of) with an unconditioned stimulus that triggers a fear response
What was the ‘Little Albert’ experiment?
Watson and Rayner’s study that conditioned a fear response in a 9-month-old baby using a white rat (neutral stimulus) and loud noise (unconditioned stimulus)
Rat presented close in time with loud noise = NS associated with UCS = fear response
What happened when the neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus were presented close together?
The neutral stimulus became associated with the unconditioned stimulus, producing a fear response
What objects did Little Albert show distress towards after conditioning?
- Non-white rabbit
- Fur coat
- Santa Claus beard made of cotton balls
What role does operant conditioning play in the maintenance of phobias?
Reinforcement increases the frequency of avoidant behavior, which maintains the phobia
What is a strength of the behavioral approach?
Real-world application in exposure therapies as it explains why people benefit from exposure, the prevention of avoidance stops reinforcement and declines.
Providing a way to treat phobias
What’s another strength of behavioural approach relating to studies?
Evidence for a link between bad experiences and phobias as De Jongh et al found 73% of people who are scared of dentists had a previous traumatic experience
What is a limitation of the behavioral approach to phobias?
Doesn’t account for cognitive aspects as it only explains behaviour. Phobias also have a cognitive component thus it cannot completely explain symptoms of phobias
Some phobias better explained by evolutionary theory like fear of the dark
