phobias

define what a phobia is

• an irrational fear of an object or situation

• a type of anxiety disorder that produces emotional relations to a potentially dangerous stimuli

what are some behavioural symptoms of phobias

• panic

• avoidance

• disruption of functioning

what are some emotional symptoms of phobias

persistent fear of exposure

high levels of anxiety

what are some cognitive symptoms of phobias

selective attention: if the sufferer can see the phobic stimulus it is hard to look away from it

what are the three DSM-5 categories for phobias

• simple phobias: the fear of specific objects or situations

• social phobias: fear of social situations

• agoraphobia: fear of leaving a safe space

Describe the behaviourist explanation of acquisition of phobias


• the phobic stimulus (NS) is paired with the unconditioned stimulus which creates an association between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus

• the phobic stimulus then creates the fear response that was originally created by the unconditioned stimulus

• this fear response can sometimes be generalised to other stimuli

describe the behaviourist explanation of the maintenance of phobia

• the avoidance of a phobia reduces anxiety

• negative reinforcement

Little Albert: Watson and Rayner- aim

to see if it is possible to induce a fear of a previously neutral stimulus through classical conditioning

Little Albert: Watson and Rayner- procedure

• albert was 11 months old

• alberts reaction to the neutral stimuli without the unconditioned stimulus showed no fear

• classical conditioning was used to see if the unconditioned stimulus (the bang) could achieve the aims of inducing fear

Little Albert: Watson and Rayner- results

• after the unconditioned stimulus was introduced Albert started to show signs of fear towards the neutral stimulus and objects similar to that such as white rabbits

• this meant that stimulus generalisation has occurred

Little Albert: Watson and Rayner- conclusion

• a fear response had been conditioned using classical conditioning

• generalisation of the fear has been made to other similar objects

Bagby 1992: research on phobias

• reported on a case study of a woman who had a phobia of running water that originated from her getting her feet stuck in some rocks near a waterfall

• As time went on she became increasingly panic stricken. Although she was deconditioned, the conditioned stimulus of running water was acquired

King et al 1998: research on phobias

reported that case studies showed that children thended to acquire strong phobias through a traumatic experience, which further supports the idea of phobias being aquired through classical conditioning

Behavioural therapies to treating phobias: systematic desensitisation

stage 1: functional analysis- thereapist works with a client to produce a fear hierarchy

stage 2: relaxation training- clients are taught different techniques for relaxing, e.g breating and muscle tension

stage 3: graduated exposure- over the course of 6-12 sessions, the client is gradually brought into contact with their phobic object or situations by starting at the bottom of the hierarchy and gradually moving up once no anxiety is produced in a situation

what is reciprocal inhibition

you cannot have negative thoughts about something if you are having positive thoughts about it. this is a key principle because it suggests your conditioned response cannot be fear and calm together. Therefore, if you replace the fear with calmness the treatment has worked

behavioural therapies to treating phobias: flooding

• immediate exposure to fear stimulus

• extinction occurs because the person realises that they are in no danger

• need informed consent due to high distress

what is the difference between invitro and invivo

invitro is when you imagine exposure

invivo is when you are actually exposed