Phobias

• What are the 3 phobia categories?

  • Specific: Phobia of specific objects/situations (e.g., medical procedures)
  • Social: Phobia of a social situation (e.g., public speaking)
  • Agoraphobia: Phobia of being outside/public space
• What are characteristics of phobias?

  Behaviours, emotional and cognitive

  
• What is the 2-process method for behavioural explanation of phobias?

  1. Stage 1: acquisition through classical conditioning
  2. Stage 2: maintenance through operant conditioning
• What happens in stage 1: classical conditioning - Little Albert?

  1. Bang (UCS) = fear (UCR)
  2. Rat (NS) = no fear (no response)
  3. Bang (UCS) + rat (NS) = fear (UCR)
  4. Rat (CS) = fear (CR)
• What happens in stage 2: operant conditioning?

  Maintenance of phobic behaviours occurs with negative reinforcement – removal of something negative that increases the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated (removing phobia to increase calmness)

  • The avoidance of a frightful stimulus (e.g., someone scared of dogs: when she becomes scared, she avoids the dog which takes away her anxiety)

  
• What is a strength of the 2-process method?

  Usefulness/applications - behavioural treatments

  • Not only does this explanation tell us how a phobia can occur, but it can also help us treat them. For example, exposure therapies somewhat reverse the 2-process method. It attempts to break down the associations and also teaches patients relaxation techniques to face their fears. Therefore, this explanation has useful applications to the real world
• What is the counter argument for 'usefulness/application' of the 2-way process?

  It has been found that exposure therapy is 90%, meaning this doesn't work on all patients. therefore, there must be a further or more detailed explanation of phobias
• What is a strength of the 2-process method?

  Supporting evidence - research support

  • Little Albert was used in a classical conditioning experiment which gave him a phobia of rats = increases validity
• What is the counter argument for 'supporting research' of the 2-way process method?

  Little Albert was a case study, which means it was small scale. Therefore, it isn’t generalisable to a whole population.
• What is a limitation of the 2-process method?



  Other explanations/treatments - biological preparedness

  • Selegman (1970) believed that humans are programmed to fear life-threatening stimulus to protect ourselves (nurture vs nature)
• What is a limitation of the 2-process method?



  Conflicting evidence - not every fearful events leads to phobia

  • Di Nardo (1988) did research into the phobia of dogs (Cynophobia) and found that around 40% that have cynophobia didn’t have a negative experience with a dog
• What is a limitation of the 2-process method?



  Issues and debates - deterministic

  • The 2-process model suggests that when an individual experiences a traumatic event and uses this event to draw an association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned response, they will go on and develop a phobia. this suggests we are programmed by environmental experiences and ignores free will, however we know this isn't true (e.g., not everyone bitten by a dog develops a phobia)
• What are the treatments of phobia?

  1. Systematic desensitisation
  2. Flooding