phobias- behavioural

Classical conditioning

When a neutral stimulus gets repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus this will produce an unconditioned response. This will make the neutral stimulus the conditioned stimulus and it will produce a conditioned response.

Generalisation

When the condition is also generalised to similar objects (white rats- other white fluffy things)

Operant conditioning

Reinforcing a phobia through negative reinforcement. If you avoid your phobia then you will learn that avoiding it makes u less anxious and therefore you feel encouraged to continue avoiding your phobia.

Tomarken et al

Showing snakes and neutral objects to individuals with a snake phobia and got them to guess how many snakes in the picture- guessed more than there actually was due to fear

Seligman

We are predisposed to acquire some phobias rather than others. Being scared of snakes and spiders would be due to having an evolutionary disadvantage

Watson and rayner- little Albert

Showing the baby a fluffy rabbit or rat and a loud bang at the same time. The baby will learn to associate the bang with the rabbit and will get scared of the rabbit.

McGrath et al

75% of patients with phobias respond to being exposed to their fear (in Vigo) instead of being asked to visualise their fear (in vitro)