Behavioural Approach to Explaining Phobias

• Operant Conditioning


  behaviour -> rewarded -> behaviour is repeated

  behaviour -> remove something unpleasant -> behaviour is repeated

  behaviour -> punishment -> behaviour is forgotten/not repeated
• Classical Conditioning


  UCS -> UCR

  UCS + NS -> UCR

  continuous pairing of UCS and NS becomes

  CS -> CR
• Classical Conditioning: initiation


  phobias are initially acquired via association between a neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus
• Operant Conditioning: Maintenance


  cc tends to distinguish over time so this doesn't explain how the phobia continues.

  it's unlikely that you will be bitten by every dog you encounter and therefore it would be reasonable to assumer that our phobia should weaken with every friendly dog we come across.

  - according to OC -> phobias can be negatively reinforced. e.g. avoiding the dog when coming across one -> reduced person's feelings of anxiety and negatively reinforces their behaviour, making person more likely to repeated this behaviour in future
• Strength - treatments based on model such as systematic desensitisation

  Success rates of between 60% and 90% have been reported for spider phobics and blood-injection phobics (Barlow et al).

  since treatment is based on behavioural assumptions of (un)learning, suggests the behavioural approach is correct in proposing that this is how the phobia was acquired.
• Strength - research support of two model

  DiNardo et al found over 60% of people with cynophobia could relate their fear to a frightening experience. Supports idea that phobic item was originally neutral become a learned stimulus.

  - increases validity
• Weakness - can't explain other circumstances

  can't explain if people experience a frightening experience but not a phobia.

  DiNardo et al - control group without a cynophobia, a similar proportion experienced a incident with dogs.

  association is not enough to lead to a phobia and must be individual differences in development of phobias.
• Weakness - two-process model can't explain cognitive characteristics of phobias

  people with phobias have irritational beliefs regarding the phobic item/situation

  sufferers of claustrophobia may think 'I'm going to be trapped in this lift and suffocate', which is an irrational thought and not taken into consideration in behaviourist explanation.

  behaviourist approach only focuses on observable behaviour, it's unable to account for these cognitive symptoms and not a complete explanation of phobias.