Phobias

• What is a phobia ?

  an anxiety which interferes with daily living with daily living, irrational fear that produces conscious avoidance to the fear
• What are the three types of behaviour characteristics?

  • behavioural
  • emotional
  • cognitive
• What are the behavioural characteristics ?

  • Panic
  • avoidance
  • endurance
• what are the emotional characteristics ?

  • fear
  • anxiety
  • emotional response is unreasonable
• what are the cognitive characteristics of phobias ?

  • cognitive distortions
  • irrational beliefs
  • selective attention to phobic stimulus
• which approach explains phobias ?

  the behavioural approach
• What is the two process model?

  an explanation for the onset and persistence for disorders which create anxiety such as phobias
• what are the two processes involved in the two process model?

  • classical conditioning
  • operant conditioning
• what does the two process model suggest ?

  that phobias are acquired through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning specifically through negative reinforcement
• How are phobias maintained through operant conditioning?

  a person with a phobia tends to avoid a phobic stimulus as much as they can, this is known as negative reinforcement

  the sense of relief after avoiding the fear serves as a desirable consequence, this means the behaviour will be repeated, this is known as positive reinforcement
• What behavioural treatments are used for treating phobias ?

  • flooding
  • systematic desensitisation
• what is flooding ?

  this involves exposing a person with a phobia to their phobic stimulus in a extreme way without a gradual build up in the anxiety hierarchy

  flooding is concerned with the immediate exposure to a frightening situation