The Behaviourist Approach to Phobias

• Symptoms that a phobia is characterised by

  • Persistent fear of a specific stimulus
  • Irrational beliefs about the feared stimulus
  • Avoidance of the feared stimulus
• Social phobia

  the fear of being in social situations
• Agoraphobia

  the fear of being in situations that escape would be difficult
• Specific phobia

  the fear of a specific object or animal
• Two process model suggests

  • Phobias are acquired through classical conditioning
  • Maintained through operant conditioning
• Phobias through classical conditioning

  • A person develops a phobia of a neutral stimulus if they encounter that neutral stimulus with an unpleasant unconditioned stimulus
  • Association is formed between the two
  • Neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus and a person develops a conditioned response to that stimulus.
• Phobias through operant conditioning

  • When a person avoids a feared stimulus the negative feeling is removed
  • Behaviour is reinforced through negative reinforcement
• Little albert study: Watson and Rayner

  • Conducted study of Little Albert in 1920 providing evidence for the first step of the two process model
  • Repeatedly presented little Albert with a white rat and would pair the appearance of the rat with a loud noise
  • The rat was at first a neutral stimulus as little Albert at first showed no response to the rat
  • However little albert began to associate the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus which was the loud noise
  • The rat became the conditioned stimulus and little Albert crying became the conditioned response
• Barlow and Durand's study

  • they found out 50% of participants could recall a traumatic event that caused their driving phobia and out of the people who could recall the event, many have not driven since
  • Supports idea that phobias are acquired through classical conditioning through the association of a feared stimulus with a traumatic event.
  • Supports that behaviour is maintained through operant conditioning as avoidance of the feared stimulus is negatively reinforced
• Limitations to the behaviourist explanation of phobias

  • Not all phobias are caused by a traumatic event
  • Phobias could be genetically determined
• Flooding

  exposing patients to their worst fear and encouraging them to remain with it until the anxiety wears off
• Systematic desensitisation

  A treatment which involves:

  • A fear hierarchy
  • Relaxation techniques e.g. deep breathing
  • Exposure to the feared stimulus
• Support for flooding: Kaplan and Tolin

  Found that 65% of patients had no symptoms of a specific phobia 4 years after a session of flooding showing effectiveness for treating specific phobias as it removed symptoms in patients for a long time after treatment.
• Support for systematic desensitisation: Ost

  • Found out that 90% of patients treated with systematic desensitisation were much improved or completely recovered from their phobia
• Strengths of systematic desensitisation

  • exposes patient to the feared stimuli gradually creating less distress
  • More ethical than flooding
• Limitations of systematic desensitisation

  • Less effective at treating social phobias and agoraphobias
• Limitations of flooding

  • Can strengthen the association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus causing the patient to produce an even greater conditioned feared response.
  • Unethical and can cause distress
  • Not appropriate for some patients such as children
• Strengths of flooding

  • Quick and effective for reducing anxieties
  • Can lead to permanent elimination of phobias
  • Allows clients to confront fears in a controlled environment