Phobias

• Phobia: An irrational fear of an object or situation.
• Behavioural: ways in which people act.
• Emotional: Related to a persons feelings or mood.
• Cognitive: Refers to the process of 'knowing', including thinking reasoning remembering and believing.
• Dsm-5 categories:

  • Specific phobias- Phobia of an object, such as animals, or a situation such as having an injection.
  • Social anxiety- Phobia of a social situation such as pubic speaking.
  • Agoraphobia- Phobia of being outside or in a public place.
• Behavioural characteristics of phobias:

  1. Panic
  2. Avoidence
  3. Endurance
• Panic (Behavioural characteristic of phobias): A person with a phobia may panic in response to their phobia. Panic may involve screaming, running and crying. Children may react differently such as freezing up or having a tantrum.
• Avoidance (Behavioural characteristic of phobias): People may tend to put in effort to not come into contact with their phobia, this can make it hard to live day to day life.
• Endurance (Behavioural characteristic of phobias): Occurs when a person decides to reman in the presence on their fear such as staying in a room with a spider.
• Emotional characteristics of phobias:

  1. Anxiety
  2. Fear
  3. Emotional response is unreasonable
• Anxiety (Emotional characteristic of phobias): The person is prevented from relaxing, they are in an emotional unpleasant state of high arousal.
• Fear (Emotional characteristic of phobias): Fear is the immediate response we encounter when seeing a phobia, it's usually more intense.
• Emotional response is unreasonable (Emotional characteristic of phobias): Fear is much greater than is normal to the threat. For example, if someone is scared of spiders they will react more dramatically to a tiny spider than a normal person reacting to a big spider.
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias:

  1. Selective attention to phobias
  2. Irrational beliefs
  3. Cognitive distortions
• Selective attention to phobias (Cognitive characteristic of phobias): If a person can see their phobia in the same room as them, it could make it difficult for them to focus on nothing else.
• Irrational beliefs (Cognitive characteristic of phobias): A person with a phobia may have unfounded thoughts in relation to the phobia, these may not have basis in reality.
• Cognitive distortions (Cognitive characteristic of phobias): The persons perceptions may be inaccurate or unrealistic.
• Behavioral approach: A way of explaining behavior in terms of what is observable and in terms of learning.
• Two-process model: An explanation for the onset and persistence of disorders that create anxiety, such as phobias. The two processes are classical conditioning and operant conditioning.
• Classical conditioning: Learning by association. Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired together. They both end up producing the same response.
• Operant conditioning: A form of learning in which behaviour is shaped and maintained by it's consequences.
• Watson and Rayner (1920): 'Little Albert'

  • When Albert was shown a white rat to play with the researchers made a loud noise to make him associate the rat with fear.
  • This made him associate a rat with a scary experience.
  • When the rat was presented by itself, Albert showed signs of fear.
  • This shows how classical conditioning can cause phobias.
• Mowrer (operant conditioning):

  • Suggested that when we avoid a phobic stimulus we successfully escape the fear.
  • This reduction in fear reinforces the avoidance behaviour, this maintains the phobia.
• Evaluation- Behavioural approach to phobias (Strength):

  • Real world application
  • Helped develop systematic desensitization as it stops the operant conditioning.
  • This shows the value of the two-process approach.