Phobia explanation

• A phobia is an extreme ideational fear of something
• Emotional characteristics of phobia

  Anxiety

  Disproportionate reaction to actual danger

  Dread

  Panic
• Behavioural characteristics of phobia

  Avoidance

  Shaking

  Crying
• Cognitive characteristics of phobia

  Irrational thinking

  Selective attention

  Cognitive distortions

  Hypervigilence
• Phobias can be started due to an association with fear [ classical conditioning ]

  And maintained through negative reinforcement [ operant conditioning ]
• When someone avoids a phobia anxiety is reduced, acting as negative reinforcement, therefore the person is more likely to avoid the phobia in the future
• Phobias can be started through association, for example: a child associates ballons with the sudden loud noise of them popping may develop a phobia of balloons
• One strength of the behavioural explaination for phobias is its uses in successful treatments for phobias
• One weakness of the behavioural treatment for phobias is that it does not explain all phobias, not all people have had a bad experince with their phobia
• One weakness of the behavioural explanation for phobias is that ignores cognitive factors in forming a phobia