Psychopathology - explanation of phobias

• Behavioural approach


  Emphasises the role of learning in the acquisition of behaviour, focuses on behaviour - what we can see
• Key aspects of phobias

  • Panic
  • Avoidance
  • Endurance
• Two-Process Model


  Explanation for the onset and persistence of disorders that create anxiety such as phobias
• Acquisition by Classical Conditioning


  Learning to associate a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus that triggers a fear response
• Maintenance by Operant Conditioning

  Behaviour is reinforced (rewarded) or punished, avoidance behaviour is negatively reinforced
• Classical conditioning example


  • Watson and Rayner's experiment with 'Little Albert'
• Phobia development example


  • Child gets bitten by a dog, associates dogs with fear and pain, fear generalises to all dogs
• Avoidance behaviour


  Reduces anxiety, negatively reinforces the behaviour, making it more likely to be repeated
• Not all phobias appear following a bad experience, some common phobias occur in populations with little experience of the phobic object
• Not everyone who experiences a frightening event develops a phobia, it may require a genetic vulnerability as well as an environmental trigger
• Systematic desensitisation therapy


  • Prevents avoidance behaviour, which is the key to curing phobias according to the two-process model
• The behavioural approach can be accused of being reductionist, as it reduces complex human behaviour to simple conditioning processes
• The two-process model does not account for the cognitive aspects of phobias, such as irrational beliefs about the phobic stimulus