Phobias

• Phobias are constant and irrational fears of a specific stimulus.
• The symptoms of phobias are behavioural- Avoiding the feared object.

  Emotional- Feelings of anxiety and fear.

  Cognitive- Irrational thinking.
• The three types of phobia are Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces or leaving your home), Social phobia (fear of social interactions) and Simple phobia (Fear of specific object.)
• Phobias are a result of classically conditioned association between an anxiety provoking object and a previously neutrual stimulus.

  For example, a kid gets bitten by a dog, now the kid associates the fear and pain of being bitten with dogs.

  
  

  Generalisation = The kid is now scared of all dog-like animals.
• Phobias are maintained via operant conditioned.

  For example, the kid sees a dog. He crosses the road in order to avoid the dog. The kid has now reinforced the behaviour of avoiding dogs which maintains the phobia.
• Systematic desensitisation aims to remove the fear response of phobias and substitute it for a relaxing response.

  First, you taught massaging and breathing techniques which were used everytime the patient felt anxious.

  Second, a fear hierarchy starts with a stimulus that produces the least anxiety and you slowly build your way up to the most anxiety-provoking stimulus.

  Strength) Gilroy followed up on 40 patients who had S.D for spider phobias.

  ->Found that they were less scared than a control group w/o spider phobias.
• Flooding is when a patient is exposed to their most feared object without any chance of escaping.

  Limitation: It's very dangerous if patient has any health conditions that could be worsened by severe anxiety.

  Strength: A study was done on people with a simple phobia where they each had a flooding session.

  ->Study was followed up and it was found that 65% had no phobia symptoms.
• Little Albert (case study)

  Little Albert was exposed to a small white rat initially (neutral stimulus). Albert did not react.

  Then, the researcher stood behind Albert and started smashing metal together (unconditional stimulus) causing him to cry, while the rat was in his presence.

  After repeated coupling of the white rat and clanging metal, the rat by itself was enough for the baby to cry. Meaning that the white rat become a conditioned stimulus and the crying becomes a conditioned response.
• A03 Two process model

  Strength) A study was done investigating people with phobias of driving. They were asked if they had a traumatic experience which resulted in their phobias.

  -> Found that 50% did have a traumatic event occur.

  -> also found that most of them haven't driven a car since that event.

  This means that they are reinforcing their phobias via negative reinforcement, providing evidence for the two process model.
• A03 Two process model

  Limitation) In the same study, 50% couldn't recall a traumatic event. This suggests that there are other factors in acquiring phobias.

  -> For example, our ancestors may found spiders and scorpions dangerous and passed down that fear through their genetics. Meaning that phobias could be genetically determined.