Phobias

• What are the 3 behavioural characteristics of phobias?

  • avoidance
  • Panic
  • endurance
• what are the 3 emotional characteristics of phobias?

  • Anxiety
  • fear
  • unreasonable emotional response
• what are the 3 cognitive characteristics of phobias?

  • irrational beliefs
  • cognitive distortions
  • Selective attention to phobia stimulus
• a phobia is defined as an irrational fear of an object or situation
• one explanation of phobias is that they are learned through classical conditioning (behaviourist approach)
• the two process model is an explanation of phobias that suggests that phobias are the result of two processes: classical conditioning (acquiring phobia) and operant conditioning (maintaining phobia)
• phobias are acquired through association between a stimulus that triggers a fear response naturally being paired with a neutral stimulus
• two process model is an explanation of phobias proposed by mowrer
• the behavioural approach can be used to help treat phobias
• systematic desensitisation is a behavioural treatment of phobias that involves creating a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking situations related to the phobic stimulus, teaching the person to relax and exposing them to phobic situations one at a time
• flooding is a type of behavioural therapy involved in treating phobias, consisting of exposing someone to an extreme form of the phobic stimulus in order to reduce the anxiety caused by the stimulus. this takes place in a small number of long therapy sessions.
• limitation of 2 process model- doesn't account for the cognitive aspects of phobias - doesn't explain phobic cognitions so not a full explanation
• supportive evidence for 2 process model - little Albert - shows how a frightening stimulus can cause a phobia of that stimulus (rat)
• limitation of Flooding is that it can be extremely traumatic - this means dropout rates are higher than systematic desensitisation, making it a less effective treatment of phobias
• strength of two-process model - it has lead to the development of treatments for phobias
• strength of systematic desensitisation - Gilroy et al followed up 42 people who received SD for a spider phobia. The people who had been treated with SD were less fearful than a control group treated with relaxation but not exposure
• strength of flooding - cost effective - can work in as little as 1 session - saves NHS money
• opposing evidence for behavioural explanation - seligman - suggested phobias are as a result of 'preparedness' - we tend to acquire phobias of things that pose as dangerous to us - suggesting phobias may have an innate evolutionary element