Explanations of phobias

• What is phobias?

  A group of mental disorders characterised by high levels of anxiety in response to a particular stimulus or group of stimuli.

  • The anxiety interferes with normal living.
• What are some behavioural characteristics of phobias?

  • Avoidance: When a person with a phobia id faced with the feared stimuli, they try to avoid it.
  • Freeze: 'Freezing' is an adaptive response because a predator may think the prey is dead.
• What are some emotional characteristics of phobias?

  • Feelings of fear, anxiety and panic: These emotions are cued by the presence or anticipation of a specific object or situation and are out of proportion of the actual danger
• What are some cognitive characteristics of phobias?

  • Irrational thinking: Irrational nature of person's thinking and resistance to rational arguments. (e.g., a person with a fear of flying is not helped by arguments that flying is the safest form of transport.
  • Recognition that fear is excessive or unreasonable: This characteristic distinguishes between a phobia and a delusion mental illness, like schizophrenia, where the individual is unaware of how unreasonable their behaviour is.
• What is the two-process model?

  Mowrer proposed the two-process model to explain how phobias are learned.

  • The first stage is classical conditioning, and then, in the second stage, operant conditioning occurs.
• What does the two-process model consist of (using the behaviourist approach)?

  • Classical conditioning - initiation
  • Operant conditioning - maintenance
• How does classical conditioning (as part of the two-process model) help explain phobias?

  A phobia is acquired through association - the association between a neutral stimulus (NS), such as a white furry rat, and a loud noise results in a new stimulus being learned.

  • The original unconditioned stimulus (UCS) was a loud noise, and the original unconditioned response (UCR) was fear.
  • By pairing the loud nouse with a furry object, the furry object acquired the same properties as the UCS and produced the response of fear, now called the conditioned response (CR).
• How does Little Albert use classical conditioning to explain his fear?

  When Albert saw a white furry rat he cried, presumably because the object was now associated with fear.

  The same process can explain why someone develops a fear of dogs after being bitten:

  • Being bitten (UCS) creates fear (UCR)
  • Dog (NS) associated with being bitten (UCS)
  • Dog (now CS) produces fear response (now CR)
• How does operant conditioning (as part of the two-process model) help explain phobias?


  Through classical conditioning a phobia is acquired. However, this does not explain why individuals continue to feel fearful, nor does it explain why individuals avoid the feared object.

  Operant conditioning - the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated is increased if the outcome is rewarded.

  • In the case of a phobia, the avoidance of (or escape from) the phobic stimulus reduces fear and thus is rewarding.
  • This is an example of negative reinforcement - the individual avoids the anxiety created by, for example, the dog.
• How does social learning help explain phobias?

  • Social learning is not part of the two-process model.

  Phobias may also be acquired through modelling the behaviour of others.

  For example, seeing a parent respond to a spider with extreme fear may lead to a child to acquire a similar behaviour appears rewarding.
• What is a limitation of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias?

  Biological preparedness

  • The fact that phobias do not always develop after a traumatic incident may be explained in terms of biological preparedness.
  • Seligman argues animals are genetically programmed to learn an association between potentially life-threatening stimuli and fear.
  • These stimuli are referred to as ancient fears- things that would have been dangerous in our evolutionary past (e.g., snakes).
  • This would explain why people are less likely to develop fears of modern objects such as toasters and cars that are much more of a threat than spiders. Such items were not a danger in our evolutionary past.
  • This suggests the behaviour approach cannot explain all phobias.
• What is another limitation of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias?

  The two-process model ignores cognitive factors - environmental reductionism

  • There are cognitive aspects to phobias that cannot be explained in a traditionally behaviourist framework.
  • An alternative explanation is the cognitive approach, which proposes phobias may develop as a consequence of irrational thinking.
  • For example, a person in a lift may think: “I could become trapped in here and suffocate”. Such thoughts create extreme anxiety and may trigger a phobia.
  • The value of this alternative explanation is that it leads to cognitive therapies such as CBT that may, in some situations, be more successful than behaviourist treatments.
  • For example, social phobia responds better to CBT.
• What is a strength of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias?

  The importance of classical conditioning

  • The two-process model is that it is supported by research asking people about their phobias.
  • People with phobias often recall a specific incident when their phobia appeared, for example being bitten by a dog or experiencing a panic attack in a social situation (Sue et al., 1994).
  • However, not everyone who has a phobia can recall such an incident, it is possible that traumatic incidents did happen, but have since been forgotten (Ost, 1987).
  • Sue et al. suggests different phobias may be the result of different processes. For example, arachnophobics (people who are scared of spiders) were more likely to explain their disorder in terms of a specific incident, whereas arachnophobics (people who are scared of spiders) were more likely to cite modelling as the cause.
• What is another limitation of the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias?

  Incomplete explanations

  • The two-process model is that is an incomplete explanation.
  • If a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a fearful experience the result should be a phobia, but this doesn’t always happen.
  • Research has shown that not everyone bitten by a dog develops a phobia of a dog (Di Nardo et al., 1988).
  • This could be explained by the diathesis-stress model- proposes that we inherit a genetic vulnerability for developing mental disorders.
  • However, a disorder will only manifest itself if triggered by a life event, such as being bitten by a dog.
  • This suggests that a dog bite would only lead to a phobia in those people with such a vulnerability.
  • Therefore, a behavioural explanation is incomplete on its own.