Phobias

Define phobia

An irrational fear of an object or situation

What are the 3 categories of phobia according to the DSM-5

• Specific phobia - of an object or situation

• Social phobia - fear of social interactions or situations

• Agoraphobia - fear of being outside or in a public place

What are behavioural characteristics of phobias

Behavioural characteristics of phobias include the ways in which the phobic person responds to the phobic stimulus

Outline the behavioural characteristics of phobias

Panic

• A person with a phobia may panic when in the presence of a phobic stimulus

• Respond by crying, screaming or running away

Avoidance

• Going into a lot of effort to prevent coming into contact with phobic stimuli

Endurance

• An individual chooses to remain in the presence of phobic stimulus

What are 'emotional characteristics of phobias'

Emotional characteristics of phobias revolve around the primary feelings and emotions experienced in the presence of a phobic stimulus

Outline the emotional characteristics of phobias

Anxiety

• Involve an emotional response of anxiety, an unpleasant state of arousal

• Can be long term

Fear

• The immediate and extremely unpleasant response we experience when we encounter or think of phobic stimulus

• Usually more intense but lasts for a shorter period of time than anxiety

Emotional response is unreasonable

• The phobic person generally knows that their response is disproportionate to the phobic stimulus but they still feel fear when they are confronted by it

What are the 'cognitive characteristics of phobias'

Cognitive characteristics of phobias involve irrational thinking, cognitive distortions and selective attention

Outline the cognitive characteristics of phobias

Selective attention to the phobic stimulus

• involves the phobic person becoming fixated on the phobic stimulus and unable to draw their attention away from it

• will cause a difficulty in concentration

Irrational beliefs

• May hold unfounded thoughts in relation to phobic stimuli

• increases the pressure for the individual to perform well in social situations

Cognitive distortions

• The perceptions of someone with a phobia may be inaccurate and unrealistic

Define the two-process model

• who proposed it

An explanation for the outset and persistence of disorders that create anxiety such as phobias. The two conditions are CC for onset and OC for persistence

• Proposed by Mowrer (1960)

Outline CC in the two process model

• what is an example of this

Involves learning to associate something that we initially have no fear of (NS) with something that already triggers a fear response (UCS)

• ‘Little Albert’ → Watson and Rayner (1920)

Outline OC in the two process model

• Mowrer explained phobias are long-lasting due to OC

• Reinforcement and punishment is involved in OC

• Mowrer suggested that whenever we avoid a phobic stimulus, we successfully escape the fear and anxiety we would’ve experienced if we had remained there

• This reduction in fear reinforces the avoidance behaviour so the phobia is maintained

Outline the strengths of the two process model

Real world application

• The TPM sets out the mechanisms via which phobias are conditioned, resulting in the development of  therapies such as systematic desensitisation which work to reverse this process to successfully treat phobias

• Once avoidance behaviour is prevented it ceases to be reinforced

  • This means the TPM has useful application to treating phobias

Phobias and traumatic experiences

• There is evidence that shows a link between bad experiences and phobias (Little Albert)

• More systematic evidence comes from Ad De Jongh et al 2006

• It confirmed the association between a stimulus and UCR can lead to a development of a phobia

Outline the results of Ad De Jongh et al 2006

• Found that 73% of people with a fear of dental treatment had experienced a traumatic event, most likely dentistry (others a violent crime)

• In comparison to a control group, only 21% had experienced a traumatic event

• It confirmed the association between a stimulus (dentists) and UCR (pain) can lead to a development of a phobia

Evaluate the limitations of the two process model

Cognitive aspects of phobias

• Two-process model is geared towards explaining behaviour

• We know phobias are not simply avoidant responses, there are still cognitive elements (holding irrational beliefs)

• Two-process model doesn’t offer an adequate explanation for phobic cognitions

• This suggests that the two-process model can only explain phobias to a certain extent as it’s ignorant of the cognitive components

‘Preparedness’ - learning and evolution

• The TPM only focuses on conditioning as a determinant of phobia development which does not account for phobias which may have an evolutionary origin in our pasts

• Referred to as ‘preparedness’ (Seligman 1971)

• E.g snakes and the dark

• TPM is limited because it doesn’t take into account evolutionary factors that may play a role in how phobias originate, as well as - not all phobias are created/maintained by behavioural factors