Phobias

Characteristics, explanations and treatments

What is a phobia classified as?

Excessive irrational fear and anxiety (out of proportion to real danger)

What are the types of phobias?

Specific Phobia: Object, animal, place or situation.

Social anxiety/phobia: Social situation

Agoraphobia: being outside/in public

What are the behavioural characteristics for phobias?

-Panic

-Avoidance

-Endurance

Explain the characteristic panic

Response to the stimuli (e.g trying to run away/freezing, screaming or crying)

Explain the characteristic avoidance

Effort to avoid contact with stimulus (usually more difficult or more inconvenient)

Explain the characteristic endurance

Opposite of avoidance, choosing to stay in the presence of the stimulus (e.g keeping an eye on a spider)

What are the emotional characteristics of a phobia

-Anxiety

-Fear

-Unreasonable response

Explain the characteristic Anxiety

Response of high anxiety and prevents forms of relaxation.

Explain the characteristic Fear

Immediate and unpleasant response when we experience/think about a phobic stimulus (more intense but shorter than anxiety).

Explain the characteristic Unreasonable response

Disproportionate emotions and anxiety to the threat and how people would normally react.

What are the cognitive characteristics of a phobia.

-Selective Attention

-Irrational Beliefs

-Cognitive Distortion

Explain the characteristic Selective attention

Hard to look away from the phobic stimulus and difficult to concentrate on something else.

Explain the characteristic Irrational beliefs

Unfounded thoughts/beliefs that have no basis in reality (e.g i must always sound intelligent).

Increases fear and pressure in social situations.

Explain the characteristic Cognitive Distortions

Perceptions of a phobic stimulus is distorted (e.g snakes are seen as more scary to those with a phobia of snakes).

What is the definition of classical conditioning?

-Shows no initial response to the NS

-Shows an UCR of fear/anxiety to an UCS

-When the UCS and NS and brought together the participant learns to associate the NS with the fear/anxiety experience with UCS

-NS has now been conditioned to be a CS which now produces a CR of fear/anxiety.

What is the definition of operant condtioning?

Reinforcing behaviour with consequences:

Positive Reinforcement - Rewarding behaviour with a positive experience (behaviour is more likely to be repeated).

Negative Reinforcement - Rewarding the avoidance of a negative behaviour with the avoidance of a punishment (more likely to not repeat/avoid negative behaviour).

Punishment - The consequence of a negative experience for negative behaviour (less likely to repeat negative behaviour).