Phobias

• What is a phobia?

  An intense, persistent and irrational fear of an object, context or activity

  • Specific phobias - spiders, the dark, flying
  • Social phobias - public speaking, talking in a group
• Characteristics of Phobias

  Behavioural = panic, avoidance, endurance

  Emotional = anxiety, fear

  Cognitive = selective attention, irrational beliefs, cognitive distortions
• Behavioural Explanation

  Two-Process model proposed by Mowrer saying that phobias are:

  • acquired by classical conditioning (association)
  • maintained by operant conditioning (consequence)
• Little Albert


  Watson and Rayner - showed 9 month old Albert a series of stimuli, but the only one that resulted in fear was a loud bang. 2 months later, he returned and the researchers gave him a white rat at the same time as making a loud noise. After repetition, Little Albert displayed fear when he saw the rat, even if there was no loud noise.
• Stimulus Generalisation


  Little Albert also developed a fear of:

  • Rabbit
  • Fur coat
  • Watson wearing a Santa Claus beard of cotton balls
• Why do phobias continue?

  Operant conditioning - if we are scared of something we avoid it so our phobia persists. Avoiding the phobia has desirable consequences so we feel rewarded (negative reinforcement)
• Explaining phobias : Strength

  Application to the development of therapies e.g. flooding and systematic desensitisation. Removing avoidance behaviour prevents the phobia from being reinforced.
• Explaining phobias : Weakness

  Bounton says that evolutionary factors could play a role in avoiding stimuli that has resulted in the increased the change of survival for our ancestors. We are predisposed and have innate phobias that act as a survival mechanism, which suggests there is more to phobias than learning
• Explaining phobias : Weakness

  There are cognitive aspects that cannot be explained in a behaviourist network and so are ignored. Cognitive approach says phobias develop as the consequence of irrational thinking.
• Treating Phobias : SD

  Systematic Desensitisation is a behavioural therapy designed to gradually reduce phobic anxiety through the principle of classical conditioning (counterconditioning - learning a new response to a stimulus)
• Processes of Systematic Desensitisation 


  1. Construction of anxiety hierarchy - list of situations related to phobia arranged in order from least to most frightening
  2. Relaxation - taught relaxation techniques (reciprocal inhibition= can't feel fear and relaxed so one prevents the other)
  3. Exposure to phobic stimulus - working through the anxiety hierarchy when in a relaxed state, only moving up when the client stays relaxed in the presence of the phobic stimulus
• Treating Phobias : F

  Flooding is a behavioural therapy involving immediate exposure to the phobic stimulus. Extinction = learned response is extinguished when the conditioned stimulus is encountered without the unconditioned stimulus
• Treating phobias : Strength


  Gilroy et al followed up 42 people who had SD and found them to be less fearful than a control group at both 3 and 33 months, proving it's effectiveness
• Treating Phobias : Strength

  Flooding is highly cost effective as it can work in just one session and is clinically effective.
• Treating Phobias : Weakness

  Flooding is traumatic and raises ethical issues for knowingly causing stress to clients. Dropout rates are higher than SD so effectiveness is less if clients don't engage fully.
• Treating Phobias : Weakness

  Behavioural therapies only mask the symptoms and do not tackle the underlying causes of phobias (symptom substitution). Removing the symptoms only means that the cause remains and the symptoms will resurface.