Behavioural explanation for phobias

• The behavioural approach explains phobias using the two-process model which suggests that phobias are learnt through classical conditioning and maintained through operant conditioning
• Little albert- Watson and Rayner studied an infant boy called Albert in a study investigating the acquisition of a phobia.
• At the beginning Albert had no unusual anxiety around any objects, he even played with white rat presented to him at the beginning of the study
• W+R then showed that the conditioned stimulus could be generalised to other similar objects e.g a white fluffy hat. In conclusion little albert had successfully acquired an irrational phobia of white fluffy objects through classical conditioning.
• (-) May not generalise to whole population (little albert) Because this study was only conducted on one individual (little albert) it is difficult to generalise the findings to the rest of the population i.e the study lacks population validity
• (-) Albert had been brought up in a hospital environment from birth and had been seen to show some unusual behaviour e.g a general lack of fear. Therefore Albert may have responded differently to the study compared to how other children would have therefore the results are unique to him.
• Little albert- There are real world applications. This explanation has led to the introduction of methods for treating phobias such as systematic desensitisation and flooding which have been proved to be very successful.
• (-) Evolutionary component However, another explanation for phobias is that we are more likely to develop phobias to stimuli that have an underlying survival component linked to our evolutionary past
• snakes are a common phobia because they were a threat in our evolutionary past and so we are innately programmed to rapidly associate them with fear to increase our chances of survival by avoiding them
• evolutionary theory can explain why some phobias (‘prepared phobias’) are more common than others.
• evolution component- supported by Davey who found that only 7% of spider phobics recalled having a traumatic experience with spiders, which means most cannot be caused due to classical conditioning.
• The first process (acquiring the phobia) happens when a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus that produces an unconditioned response. If this unconditioned stimulus causes a negative response it is soon associated with the neutral stimulus. Eventually the neutral stimulus will become a conditioned stimulus that causes a conditioned response. And the conditioning is then generalised to similar objects.
• The second process is the maintenance of the phobia through operant conditioning. If the person avoids the phobic stimuli then they are rewarded by not experiencing the anxiety associated with it. This negatively reinforces the behaviour as by avoiding something unpleasant they are rewarded and so more likely to continue avoiding it. As a result the phobia remains as they don't confront the phobia to learn to re-associate it with something more pleasant.
• Every time the white rat was presented to Albert they made a loud bang with two iron bars behind alberts head. The noise (unconditioned stimulus) caused a feared response. Over time as the rat (neutral stimulus) and the noise were paired together, they became associated and both caused the unconditioned response of fear. Over time the rat (neutral stimulus) became a conditioned stimulus and fear became a conditioned response, and eventually Albert showed the conditioned response when presented with the neutral stimulus alone.