learning theory explanation of phobias

• what is a phobia

  a phobia is 'an overwhelming and debilitating fear of an object, place, situation, feeling or animal' (NHS 2015)

  they are irrational fears of objects or situations as these do not actually pose a threat to the individual |

  nevertheless they prevent people from engaging in their daily activities, going to certain places and functioning without persistent fear or anxiety

  it is estimated around 10 million people in the UK have a phobia
• simple phobia 


  can produce a variety of reactions from their victims ranging from mild anxiety to severe panic attacks and they usually have a particular focus e.g spiders or flying
• complex phobias 


  they are deep rooted fears about a particular circumstance

  a victim of a complex phobia may experience conditions such as agoraphobia or social phobia
• classical conditioning explanation of phobias

  classical conditioning explains behaviour as being caused by association between different stimuli

  therefore according to the classical conditioning theory phobias are a result of a neutral stimulus (e.g object situation or event) becoming paired with an unconditioned stimulus (e.g something that produces a reflex response) and which will eventually produce a conditioned response (e.g jumping, screaming, anxiety) on its own
• classical conditioning explanation of phobias: dollinger et al (+)

  found that child survivors of a thunder strike demonstrated more intense fear of thunder, lightening and tornadoes than control group

  this shows that phobias can be learnt through association between fear and an event
• classical conditioning explanation of phobias: diNardo et al (+)

  studied 16 people with a dog phobia and identified that 56% of them reported conditioning experiences

  this shows that a classical conditioning can cause phobias to develop
• classical conditioning explanation of phobias: hekmat 1987 (-)

  investigated students with animal phobias and found only 23% reported a classically conditioned experience

  this shows that learning by association is not the only way to explain a phobia
• operant conditioning explanation of phobias

  operant conditioning explain behaviour learnt through rewards and punishments

  according to operant conditioning phobias develop as a result pf reinforcement of a fear response to objects or situations

  e.g if you experience anxiety when you are in large groups of people (social phobia) you might want to escape the situation to reduce anxiety (negative reinforcement) any future avoidance of large social groups will result in a non-fear response such as feeling relaxed (positive reinforcement) so motivating you to avoid similar situations
• social learning theory as an explanation of phobias

  according to social learning theory behaviour is learned through observation, imitation, vicarious and direct reinforcement through rewards and punishment

  according to this theory phobias can be learned from people around us such a child watching a parent run away in fear from a wasp (observation), the parent being comforted by another person that calms them down (vicarious reinforcement), then later repeating the observed behaviour (imitation) which is met by comforting from another person (direct reinforcement)
• social learning theory as an explanation of phobias: dubi (+)

  observed toddlers aged between 15-20 months showing fear and avoidance of fear relevant objects (e.g rubber spiders) and fear irrelevant objects (e.g rubber mushrooms) following observations of the negative reactions displayed by their mothers

  this shows that phobias can be learnt from role models