Behaviourist Approach 2 Explain Phobias

• 1.Agoraphobia – fear of open spaces or being trapped in a public place where escape is difficult
• 1.Social phobias – anxiety related to social situations, such as talking to a group of people
• 1.Specific phobias – fears about specific objects or situations, such as spiders, heights or the dark.
• Phobias are a group of mental disorders within the category of anxiety disorders.
• Emotional characteristics:

  •Anxiety = Fear is the immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think about the phobic stimulus.•Emotional responses are sometimes unreasonable
• Behavioural characteristics:

  Panic = crying or screaming, freezing.

  Avoidance = avoid contact with feared stimuli

  Endurance = a sufferer remains in the presence of the phobic stimulus but continues to experience high levels of anxiety (flying)
• Cognitive characteristics:

  Concerned with the processing of information.

  Selective attention to phobic stimuli = hard to look away

  Irrational belief = For example, social phobias can involve beliefs like 'I must always sound intelligent'

  Cognitive distortions = snakes are aggressive looking
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• The 2 process model

  •Mowrer (1960) proposed the two-process model to explain phobias.••This argues that phobias are acquired (learned in the first place) by classical conditioning, and then maintained (continue) because of operant conditioning. 
• 2 process model

  STEP 1: CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

  (Phobia is acquired)

  A phobia (conditioned response) is acquired through the association of something that we initially have no fear of (a neutral stimulus e.g. the dark) with something that already triggers a fear response (an unconditioned response e.g. being mugged).
• 2 process model

  STEP 2: OPERANT CONDITIONING

  (Phobia is maintained)

  Mowrer suggested that whenever we avoid a phobic stimulus, we successfully escape the fear and anxiety that we would have suffered if we had remained there. This reduction in fear reinforces the avoidance behaviour (via negative reinforcement) and so the phobia is maintained as avoidance is more likely to happen again in the future.