Evaluation on phobias

+:

P - research by Watson and Raynor supports the behavioural explanation of phobias

Ev - they found that whenever little Albert was shown a rat, he immediately was scared and attempted to crawl away

Ex - this demonstrates the behavioural explanations of phobias as classical conditioning has taken place

\ P - application to treatment

Ev - Wechsler et al found that systematic desensitization is effective for specific phobia, social phobia and agoraphobia

Ex - therefore, systematic desensitization is likely to be helpful for people with phobias

\ -:

P - one limitation of this explanation for phobias is some psychologist’s state it is reductionist

Ev - it reduces behaviour down to classical and operant conditioning, however this ignores other factors such as biological explanations for example the role of genes

Ex - therefore, this explanation may be incomplete

\ P - there is an opposing theory that phobia’s are not learnt, they develop through evolution

Ev - Bouton stated that phobias are an evolutionary process that protects us which is called biological preparedness

Ex - therefore there may be an alternative explanation to the cause of phobias