PHOBIAS

CLASSIFICATION
AND
CHARACTERISTI
CS
 Phobia
An irrational fear of an object or situation
What is your phobia?!
■ What are you most scared of?!
■ This could be something rational, like flying, or this could be something totally
irrational like mine!

■ You will use your example throughout the powerpoint so make sure you have one in
mind!

■ If you don’t have your own, you can use mine or a friends.
Classification
■ All phobias are characterised by excessive fear and
anxiety, triggered by an object, place or situation.
■ The latest version of the DSM (Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) recognises 3
categories of phobias and related anxiety disorders.

■ Specific- Phobia of an object, such as an animal or body

part, or a situation such as flying or having an injection
■ Social anxiety/ Social phobia- Phobia or a social situation
such as public speaking or using a public toilet
■ Agoraphobia- Phobia of being outside or in a public place
Characteristics

■ When we are faced with our phobic stimulus (The thing we are afraid of) we behave in
particular ways.
■ We respond by feeling high levels of anxiety and try to escape.

■ These responses are generally completely irrational

– Meaning the response is out of all proportion to the phobic stimulus itself.
■ We split these characteristics into BEHAVIOURAL, EMOTIONAL AND COGNITIVE.
Panic Avoidance Endurance

Remaining in the
Can interfere with work, presence of the phobic
Crying, screaming,
education and social life stimulus but continues to
running away
etc experience high levels of
anxiety

Children- Freezing,
clinging, having a Can be unavoidable
tantrum
Behavioural
Characteristics
of Phobias
 Excessive and
Eg:
Anxiety unreasonable
Arachnophobia
response

Triggered by the presence of, Going into somewhere you

Phobias are classified as
or anticipation of the phobic expect spiders= Anxiety
anxiety disorders
stimulus response

They involve an emotional Often wildly disproportionate

Seeing a spider= Fear response
response or anxiety and fear to the danger posed

Anxiety can be long term, fear

is the immediate and
extremely unpleasant response
we experience when we
Emotional Characteristics
encounter or think about the
phobic stimulus
Selective Irrational Cognitive
Attention beliefs Distortions
“I must always sound The phobics
intelligent”, (Social perception of the
Hard to look away
Phobic, Whenever in stimulus may be
a social situation) distorted

“Belly buttons are

Useful when in Can increase pressure ugly and disgusting”
actual danger in phobic situations (Omphalophobic,
Anytime ever)

Not so useful if the

fear is irrational
Cognitive Characteristics
PHOBIAS
THE BEHAVIOURAL
APPROACH TO
EXPLAINING
PHOBIAS
Specification
■ The behavioural approach to explaining and treating phobias
■ The two process model, including classical and operant conditioning
■ Systematic desensitisation, including relaxation and use of hierarchy
■ Flooding
 According to the behavioural
approach, abnormal behaviour
can be caused by:
1) classical conditioning,
2) operant conditioning
3) social learning theory.

Mowrer (1947) proposed a two-

process model, to explain how
phobias are learned through classical
conditioning and maintained
through operant conditioning
Key terms
Acquisition by classical conditioning
■ Learning to associate something of
which we have no fear of (Neutral
response), with something that already
triggers a fear response (unconditioned
response).
■ The resulting fear is a conditioned
response

■ How could we use this to explain a

fear of Escalators?

■ Here is a hilarious example which I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7jcI8fAuI
absolutely do not encourage you to try
at home….
 Key Study- Watson and Rayner (1920)
■ Aim- To investigate whether a fear response could be learned through classical conditioning in humans
■ Method- Their participant was an 9-month old child called “Little Albert”
– Before the experiment Watson and Rayner noted that Albert showed no response to vaious objects, in
particular, a white rat.
– In order to examine whether they could induce a fear response, Watson and Rayner struck a metal bar
with a hammer behind Alberts head, every time he reached for the rat.
– They did this three times.
■ Results
– Thereafter, whenever they showed Albert the rat, he began to cry
■ Conclusion
– This experiment demonstrated that a fear response could be induced through the process of classical
conditioning in humans.
– Little Albert also developed a fear of similar objects, including a white Santa Claus beard. The
experiment revealed Albert had generalised his fear to other white fury objects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGU0IYDlwn0
■ This is a really clear explanation of this study but brace yourself… the guy is a little nuts….
Key Study- Watson and Rayner (1920)
Neutral Stimulus =
Unconditioned Stimulus =
Unconditioned Response =
Conditioned Stimulus =
Conditioned Response =

Before conditioning NS = rat US = noise UR = fear of loud noise

During conditioning PAIRING ___NS_____ + ____US____ = _____UR____

After conditioning CS = rat CR = fear

Maintenance by operant conditioning
■ Responses acquired by classical conditioning usually decline
over time, but Phobias are often long lasting.
■ Classical conditioning can explain how a phobia might
develop, but can not explain why it does not decay over
time.
■ Mowrer suggests the maintenance is a result of operant
conditioning
■ Reinforcement
– Negative- Avoiding the phobic stimulus, reduces the
feelings of anxiety and therefore, that person is more
likely to repeat the avoidance.
Before conditioning:
Neutral stimulus – dog
Unconditioned stimulus – being bitten
Unconditioned response – fear

After conditioning:
Conditioned Stimulus – dog
Conditioned Response – fear
Evaluate
■ Using your book (Page 145),
enhance the evaluation
paragraphs for the
Behavioural approach to
explaining phobias.
 Strength – good explanatory power
A strength of two-process model is that it explained how phobias could be maintained over time
P
It went beyond Watson and Rayner’s concept of classical conditioning.
Ex
Evi The model had important implications for therapists because it explains why patients need to be
exposed to the feared stimulus. Once the patient is prevented from practising their avoidance
behaviour the behaviour ceases to be reinforced and so it declines.
However, Buck (2010) suggested that avoidance of the phobia is motivated by anxiety reduction.
For example, some avoidance behaviour appears to be motivated more by positive feelings of safety.
C The motivating factor in choosing an action like not leaving the house is not so much to avoid the
phobic stimulus but to stick with the safety factor.
The importance of the two-process model matters because of the strong application to therapy.

LB
 Weakness – incomplete explanation
A weakness of the behavioural approach to explaining phobias is that is in an incomplete
P explanation.
There are some elements of phobic behaviour that require further explaining.
Ex
Evi Bounton (2007)
Evolutionary factors…

Seligman (1971)
Biological preparedness….
E
This phenomenon of biological preparedness is a problem for the two-factor theory because it shows
there is more to acquiring phobias than simply conditioning.
LB
 Weakness – phobias that don’t follow a
trauma
A weakness of the behavioural approach to explaining phobias is that not all phobias follow a
P trauma.

Ex
Evi For example someone might have a fear of snakes without having met one let alone been frightened
by one.

Phobias might actually be acquired by social learning. A child might see a parent react fearfully to
something, avoid it and so reduce their anxiety. As their parent is a good role model, a child may
E imitate this behaviour.

This matter because….

Shouldn’t be a sole explanation….
LB
THE BEHAVIOURAL
APPROACH TO
TREATING PHOBIAS
 SYSTEMATIC
DESENSITISATION
Systematic Desensitisation

■ Joseph Wolpe developed the Systematic desensitisation technique for the treatment of
anxiety-related disorders and phobias.
■ This technique is based on the idea that what has been learned (conditioned) can be
unlearned
■ The method uses counter-conditioning to unlearn maladaptive responses to a phobic
situation or object, by eliciting another response (relaxation).
■ There are three critical components to systematic desensitisation:
– 1) Fear hierarchy
– 2) Relaxation training
– 3) Reciprocal inhibition
Systematic Desensitisation

■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMZ5o2uruXY
Step 1- Anxiety/Fear Hierarchy

■ The therapist and the patient will work together to create a hierarchy that ranks
situations involving the phobic stimulus from least anxiety inducing to most.
■ The patient and therapist will then start at the bottom of the hierarchy and work to the
top.
■ The patient will only move on to the next “level” when they are able to remain calm and
relaxed in the previous stage.
■ The patient and therapist will use relaxation training and the concept of reciprocal
inhibition to overcome each stage (These are explained later!).
Fear Hierarchy – Mrs Edwards example
Activity Fear Level (0-100)
Thinking about a boat out of water 20

Looking at a picture of a boat out of water 30

Thinking about standing next to the boat 50

Looking at a real boat out of water from a distance 70

Looking at someone else touching the bottom of the 85

boat out of water

Standing next to and touching the giant boat out of 100

water
Fear Hierarchy- Create your own
Activity Fear Level (0-100)
 Step 2- Relaxation
training

■ The patient is taught to relax as

deeply as possible
■ This might involve breathing
exercises, imagery techniques
(Imagining themselves in a relaxing
situation like lying on a sunbed by a
pool in their favourite country) or
meditation.
■ Relaxation can also be achieved using
drugs such as Valium.
Step 3- Reciprocal inhibition and
Exposure
■ The final stage of treatment relies on the theory that two emotional states cannot exist
at the same time, this is known as reciprocal inhibition.
■ In this state, a person can not be anxious and relaxed at the same time and relaxation
should overtake fear.
■ Whilst in this relaxed state, the patient is exposed to the phobic stimulus starting at the
bottom of their fear hierarchy and moving up when they are able to remain relaxed
through each step.
Evaluate…

Suitable for a
Effective wide range of
patients
 Strength - effective

Research shows that systematic desensitisation is effective in the treatment of Specific Phobias.
P Gilroy et al (2003)
Spider phobia…..
Evi
This methods was effective for a specific phobia
Ex
Using this method would not work for all phobias, for example a fear of falling. It would be difficult
to have a patient physically falling in the exposer phase of the treatment.

C
However, systematic desensitisation has been very effective in reducing anxiety in spide phobia and
the effects have been long lasting.
LB
 Strength - Suitable for a wide range of patients

Systematic desensitisation is suitable to a more diverse range of phobias than the alternative of
P flooding.

Ex
Evi For example, some sufferers of anxiety disorders like phobias have learning difficulties.
Learning difficulties make it difficult for some patients to understand what is happening during
flooding.
Systematic desensitisation is generally more acceptable to patients than the alternative
E treatment options.
Refusal rates…….

This matters because it can accommodate a larger amount of patients….

LB
FLOODING
Flooding
■ Exposing the patient to the phobic stimulus
immediately, rather than gradually.
■ Intense exposure, done over an extended period of
time in safe and controlled manner.
■ Person is unable to avoid (negatively reinforce) their
phobia and through continuous exposure, anxiety
levels eventually decrease.
■ Since the option of employing avoidant behaviour is
removed, extinction will soon occur since fear is a
time-limited response to a situation which eventually
subsides.
■ In some cases, the patient may achieve relaxation
simply because they are exhausted by their own fear
response.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB4u0ZJXfLg
Ethical Issues

■ Patients must give fully informed consent as, whilst flooding is not unethical per se, it
is traumatic for the patient.
■ A patient is usually given the choice between flooding and Systematic desensitisation.
Marks
■ 4 marks for each question
Evaluate

Cost- Treatment is
effective traumatic
 Strength – cost-effective

P
Ex
Ougrin (2011)
Evi Flooding highly effective…

However, it is less effective for some types of phobias.

C E.G social phobias……

This matters because if flooding has a quick effect then patients are free of their symptoms as
LB soon as possible, allowing the patient to carry on with a normal life, and that also makes the
treatment cheaper as well.
 Weakness – traumatic!

A weakness of flooding is that the treatment can be traumatic for patients.

P
This is due to exposing the patients to the phobic stimulus immediately rather than gradually.
Ex
Research has shown that many patients are often unwilling to see it through to the end. Even
Evi though they have given consent, they find the process to difficult.

C
This matters because, time and money are wasted preparing patients only to have them refuse
LB treatment.
Essay - Homework

■ Outline and evaluate the behavioural approach to treating phobias. (16

marks)
■ Peer marked (in lesson)
HOMEWOR
K ZONE
A Laboratory Study of Fear: The Case of Peter

■ http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jones/
The ethics of flooding
■ http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jones/