behaviourist approach to explaining phobias

the behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)

behavioural, emotional, cognitive characteristics of phobias

behavioural = how individual behaves in phobic stimulus (i.e. runs away). emotional = how individual feels in phobic stimulus (i.e. anxious). cognitive = what individual thinks in phobic stimulus (i.e. I’m going to get hurt)

define phobia

persistent, abnormal, irrational fear of a specific thing or situation that compels someone to avoid it despite the awareness and reassurance that it is not dangerous

types of phobias

specific phobias (dog). social phobias (social situations, anxious just thinking about it). agoraphobia (anxious in situation where its difficult to leave, i.e. crowded spaces)

Little Albert experiment

Method: 11 month old boy is Little Albert. Before conditioning, Little Albert showed no fear response to white furry objects. When Albert reached for the rat, steel bar struck with hammer to produce loud bang. NS (white furry rat) + UCS (loud bang) → UCR (fear). Findings: After many pairings, the furry object (NS) produced the same response as the loud bang (UCS) - Albert began to cry when showed other white furry objects. Conditioned fear is also generalise to other furry objects / Santa beard / fur coat / non-white furry rabbit

Two-process model

a theory that explains the development of phobias, phobias are acquired through association (classical conditioning) and maintained through operant conditioning

evaluate the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias A03 - incomplete explanation

limitation - if a NS becomes associated with a fearful experience the result should be a phobia but this doesn’t always happen. Research has found that not everyone bitten by a dog develops a phobia of dogs. This could be explained by the diathesis-stress model which proposes that some people inherit a genetic vulnerability for developing mental disorders. This suggests that a dog bite/traumatic event would only lead to a phobia in people with a genetic vulnerability. Therefore, the behavioural explanation is incomplete on its own.

evaluate the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias A03 - support for social learning

strength - an experiment by Bandura and Rosenthal provides supporting evidence for the behavioural explanation of phobia development as they found that participants who observed a model who acted as if he was in pain every time a buzzer sounded, showed an emotional response to the buzzer. This demonstrates an acquired fear response and that modelling the behaviour of others can lead to the acquisition of phobias.

evaluate the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias A03 - biological preparedness

limitation - Phobias do not always develop after a traumatic incident could be due to biological preparedness. It can be argued humans are genetically programmed to learn associations between potentially life-threatening stimuli and fear fast as an adaptive response. Ancient fears such as heights would have been dangerous in our evolutionary past. It would have been adaptive to learn to avoid such stimuli. This explains why humans are less likely to develop a fear of modern objects like toasters as they were not dangerous in our evolutionary past. This suggests the behaviourist approach cannot explain all phobias.

evaluate the behaviourist approach to explaining phobias A03 - the two-process model ignores cognitive factors

limitation - there are cognitive aspects of phobias that cannot be explained by the behaviourist approach. The cognitive approach proposes that phobias develop as a consequence of irrational thinking. For example, a person in a lift may think ‘I could become trapped here and suffocate’, this is an irrational thought which can create extreme anxiety and may trigger a phobia. This is significant as it has contributed to the development of CBT which may be more successful in some situations than behaviourist treatments. For example, research has found CBT is more effective in treating social phobias.t

the two process model - classical conditioning

a phobia is acquired through the association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus that produces a fear/anxiety response

the two process model - operant conditioning

negative reinforcement = avoidance of a phobic stimulus reduces fear so is reinforcing / avoiding a phobic stimulus resulting in attention from parents and attention is rewarding. this makes avoidance behaviour more likely

how else may phobias be aquired

through social learning. modelling the behaviour of others. for example, seeing a parent respond to a spider with extreme fear may lead a child to acquire a similar behaviour because the fearful person gets attention (rewarding)