Psychopathology

• Behavioural characteristics of phobias

  • Panic
  • Avoidance
  • Endurance
• Emotional characteristics of phobias

  • Anxiety
  • Emotional responses are unreasonable - emotions are disproportionate to the danger phobic stimulus
• Cognitive characteristics of phobias

  • Selective attention to the phobic stimulus
  • Irrational beliefs
  • Cognitive distortions - error in logic that affects the way your mind processes info
  • Recognition of exaggerated anxiety - conscious awareness that anxiety levels experienced are overstated
• Phobia 


  An irrational fear of an object or situation
• Depression 


  A mental disorder characterised by low mood and energy levels
• Behavioural characteristics of depression

  • Low/high activity levels
  • Disruption to eating behaviour
  • Disruption to sleep
  • Aggression and self harm
• Emotional characteristics of depression

  • Lowered mood
  • Anger
  • Lowered self esteem
• Cognitive characteristics of depression

  • Poor concentration
  • Attending to and dwelling on negative aspects
  • Absolutist thinking
• Behavioral characteristics of OCD

  • Compulsive behaviour
  • Repetitive: repeating a certain behaviour
  • Reduce anxiety: reduce anxiety produced by obsessive thoughts
  • Avoidance
  • Disruption to eating behaviour
• Cognitive characteristics of OCD

  • Obsessive thoughts
  • Cognitive strategies
  • Insight into excessive anxiety
• Behavioural Approach to Explain phobias

  • Mowrer: two process model in which phobias are acquired by classical conditioning and maintained due to operant conditioning
• Watson and Reyner's Little Albert study: Procedure

  • Albert showed no fear for a lab white rat
  • Whenever the rat was placed behind Albert, Watson made a loud noise by banging two steel bars behind Albert's back (7x)
• Behavioural approach process in the Little Albert study

  • Loud noise = unconditioned stimulus
  • Crying = unconditioned response
  • Rat = neutral stimulus
  • 3 trial: rat = conditioned stimulus + Albert's induced fear = conditioned response
• Behavioural approach into explaining phobias: Operant conditioning

  • Whenever a phobic stimulus is avoided, we escape the fear and anxiety that we would've suffered if we had entered its presence which reinforces the avoidance behaviour