phobias (behavioural)

characteristics

  • behavioural

    • panic - crying, screaming, running away

    • avoidance - go to a lot of effort to prevent coming into contact with the phobic stimulus

    • endurance - choosing to remain in the presence of the phobic stimulus

  • emotional

    • anxiety - unpleasant state of high arousal, hard to relax, prevents positive emotion

    • fear - immediate, unpleasant response to stimulus, more intense but shorter periods of time

    • unreasonable - anxiety or fear is greater than normal

  • cognitive

    • selective attention - hard to look away, keeping attention on it increases chances of reacting quickly

    • irrational beliefs - unfounded thoughts, cant easily be explained and dont have a basis in reality, puts pressure on the person

    • cognitive distortions - perceptions are inaccurate and unrealistic

AO1

  • two process model proposed by mowrer

  • acquisition by classical conditioning

    • learning to associate a neutral stimulus with something that triggers a feart response

    • watson and rayner - when a rat was presented to little albert, they made a loud, frightening noise close to his ear. the noise is the UCS and fear is the UCR. when the rat is paired with this, it becomes the CS that produces a CR

    • this conditioning then generalised to similar objects. they showed little albert other furry objects and he displayed distress at all of these

  • maintenance by operant conditioning

    • phobias are often long lasting. mowrer attributes this to operant conditioning

    • negative reinforcement occurs when an individual avoids an unpleasant situation, which results in a desirable consequence which means the behaviour will be repeated

    • mowrer suggests that whenever we avoid a phobic stimulus we successfully escape the fear an anxiety that we would have experienced if we had remained there. reduction in fear reinforces avoidance behaviour so phobia is maintained

AO3

  • one strength of the two process model is its RWA

  • it has helped develop exposure therapies like systematic desensitisation

  • a distinctive element of the two process is model is that a phobia is maintained by avoiding it so by understanding this, it can be explained why being exposed to the phobic stimulus is important. once the avoidance behaviour is prevented, it can no longer be negatively reinforced by anxiety reduction so avoidance declines

  • this increases the significance of the two process model because it has made meaningful contributions to real world phobia treatments

  • one limitation of the two process model is that is a limited explanation

  • the two process model does not account for the cognitive aspects of phobias. more specifically it explains behavioural characteristics like avoidance but it ignores the significant cognitive component.

  • for example, people hold irrational beliefs. the two process model does not offer an adequate response for phobic cognitions

  • this means that the two process model is an incomplete explanation of phobias

  • a further strength of phobias is that it has supporting research

  • ad de jongh et al provided more systematic evidence for the link between frightening experiences and phobias. 73% of people with a fear of dental treatments had experienced a traumatic. this can be compared to a control group with low dental anxiety and only 21% had experienced a traumatic event

  • this supports the two process model and supports watson and rayner’s study by suggesting that fearful experiences can lead to the development of a phobia

    • CA - however, there are many cases where people develop phobias without a bad experience with the phobic stimulus. for example, common phobias like snake phobias occur in populations where very few people have any experience of snakes let alone traumatic experiences. also, vice versa, not all frightening experiences lead to phobias. this weakens the previous studies because it suggests that the association between phobias and frightening experiences is not as strong as we would expect if behavioural theories provided a complete explanation

treatment

AO1

  • systematic desensitisation - gradually reduce phobic anxiety, learning a new response to the phobic stimulus called counterconditioning

    • anxiety hierarchy - put together by client and therapist where they rank situations related to the phobic stimulus, in order of most frightening to least frightening

    • relaxation - therapist teaches client to relax as deeply as possible. it is impossible to feel fear and be relaxed at the same time so one cancels out the other, called reciprocal inhibition. this may be achieved through breathing exercises or other techniques. it can also be achieved through drugs like valium

    • exposure - finally the client is exposed to the phobic stimulus while in a relaxed state. this takes place across several sessions as they work up the hierarchy. treatment is successful when they client can stay relaxed in a high anxiety situation

  • flooding - immediate exposure to a very frightening situation, flooding sessions are longer than SD but in some cases, only session is needed

    • without the option of the avoidance behaviour, the client learns that the phobic stimulus is harmless. the learned response is extinguished when the CS is met without the UCS. this results in the CS no longer producing the CR

    • ethical safeguards - it is an unpleasant experience so it is important that clients give their fully informed consent to the procedure and they are fully prepared going into it

AO3

  • a strength of systematic densitisation is that there is supporting research

  • gilroy et al followed up with 42 people who had SD for arachnophobia in three 45-min sessions. at both 3 and 33 months, the SD group were less fearful than a control group treated by relaxation without exposure

  • wechsler claims that SD is effective for phobias like social phobia and agoraphobia

  • this means that that SD is a treatment that can be applicable to a wide range of people

  • another strength of SD is that it can be used to help people with learning disabilities

  • some people requiring treatment for phobias also have learning disabilities. this means that alternative treatments are not suitable. for example, cognitive therapies that require complex, rational thought may be more difficult. furthermore, flooding may be too distressing for them

  • this means that SD has increased population validity because it can be used to help a larger number of people

  • one strength of flooding is that it is highly cost effective

  • a therapy is cost effective if it is clinically effective and not expensive. flooding ca work in little as one session as opposed to, 10 sessions for SD to achieve the same resultd