phobias

emotional characteristics

• disproportionate fear

• anxiety

• unreasonable emotional response

behavioural characteristics

• repetitive compulsions

• compulsions reduce anxiety

• avoidance (of situations that trigger anxiety)

cognitive characteristics

• hyper-vigilance

• irrational beliefs

• cognitive distortion (perceptions of the phobic stimulus are irrational)

specific phobia definition

phobia of an object/situation

social anxiety definition

phobia of social situations

agoraphobia definition

phobia of being outside/in public places

who created the behaviourist theory of classical conditioning

Pavlov, 1897

classical conditioning definition

learning by association

before conditioning (classical conditioning)

• when confronted with the unconditioned stimulus, an unconditioned response is generated

  • e.g. unconditioned stimulus is food, unconditioned response is salivating

• when confronted with the neutral stimulus, no response is generated

  • e.g. a bell being rung is the neutral stimulus, which generates no response

during conditioning (classical conditioning)

• the unconditioned and neutral stimuli are paired together

  • e.g. the food is brought in front of the dog whilst the bell is being rung

• an unconditioned response is still generated

  • the dog still salivates

after conditioning (classical conditioning)

• the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that generates a conditioned response

  • e.g. the dog salivates when the bell is rung, even though there is no food

stimulus generalisation definition

• when another stimuli is similar enough to the conditioned stimuli that the conditioned response occurs

  • e.g. the dog salivating when it hears a different bell, because it is close enough to the original bell

stimulus discrimination definition

• when another stimuli doesn’t elicit the conditioned response because it is different enough from the original conditioned stimuli

  • e.g. the dog wouldn’t have a conditioned response to a whistle instead of a bell

operant conditioning definition

• specific consequences are associated with a voluntary behaviour

• rewards are introduced to increase a behaviour

• punishments are introduced to decrease a behaviour

Mowrer’s theory on phobias

running away from the phobic object self-reinforces the phobia through negative reinforcement, explaining why the phobia persists

extinction definition

• when a conditioned response stops happening because the conditioned stimulus keeps being presented without the unconditioned stimulus

reality testing definition

• the reason that phobics have not already been unlearned their phobias is because of their avoidance behaviour

• both systematic desensitisation and flooding deal with this

counter-conditioning definition

• replacing one conditioned response with another, such as associating the phobia with relaxation instead of fear,

• this idea relies on reciprocal inhibition, the idea that you can’t feel relaxed and anxious at the same time

flooding definition

• the patient is put into their feared scenario for a long time, because the fear response cannot be maintained for such duration

strengths of flooding

• flooding has been shown by Choy et al (2007) to be more effective than systematic desensitisation in extinguishing the patient’s phobia

• flooding is cheaper than all other forms of phobia therapy

weaknesses of flooding

• if flooding doesn’t occur for long enough and the fear is not extinguished, the process can actually make the phobia greater than it was initially

• flooding could be ethically-compromised as it can be traumatic for the patient

  • so it lacks ethical validity

• flooding is less effective with more complex (e.g. social phobias) or harmful (e.g. fear of tigers) phobias

who created the process of systematic desensitisation

Wolpe, 1958

systematic desensitisation definition

• behavioural therapy designed to gradually reduce phobic anxiety through the principal of classical conditioning

• it relies on the idea that if a person can relax in the presence of the phobic stimulus, they will be cured

step 1 of systematic desensitisation

• RELAXATION

• the patient is trained to relax completely, with relaxation techniques or tranquilisers

step 2 of systematic desensitisation

• ANXIETY HIERARCHY

• the patient draws up a list of frightening scenarios, from least frightening to most frightening in a fear hierarchy

step 3 of systematic desensitisation

• EXPOSURE

• the patient will progress through the scenarios, beginning with the least frightening, learning to stay relaxed as possible

• the patient only progresses to the next level of the fear hierarchy when they are completely relaxed in the current level

strengths of systematic desensitisation

• Gilroy et al (2003) used SD on 42 patients with arachnaphobia, over three 45 min sessions - she found that at both 3 and 33 months they were less fearful of spiders than the control group

weaknesses of systematic desensitisation

• SD doesn’t treat the cause of the phobia, only the resulting behaviour, meaning the phobia could return or be replaced

  • this limits the usefulness of SD

• some patients may struggle with applying what they have learned in SD in everyday situations

  • this limits the external validity of SD