Evaluate The Learning Approach To Phobia Study

Specific phobia, also known as simple phobia, is an anxiety disorder characterized by persistent and unreasonable fear of something or fear of a situation, wherein such fear is not proportionate to the danger or risk of that thing or situation that a person has the fear of. The five sub-type of specific phobia are the animal, natural environment, blood injection injury, situational and others. The most common specific phobia is the animal phobia. Examples of this animal phobia include fear of dogs, snakes, insects or mice. To prevent over diagnosis of specific phobia, DSM 5 have made several changes based on the over assessment of danger or erratic fear. To be considered as one of the specific phobias, it should meet the requirements

Known as a mental disorder a phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it. Phobias tend to affect the way people live their lives, for example, their working and social environments, considering that they last for a very long time and are capable to cause intense psychological physical stress. It is considered today the most common mental and anxiety disorder in the United States (Matig Mavissakalian & David H. Barlow 1981 pp 2). There are many phobias such as: the fear of aging, fear of changing, fear of clowns, fear of getting fat, fear of being in closed spaces, etc.

In Psychology learning is seen as a change in behaviour caused by an experience. Behaviorism, is seen as a learning theory; an attempt to explain how people or animals learn by studying their behaviour. The Behaviourists Approach has two theories to help explain how we learn, Classical conditioning and operant conditioning. In this task I will attempt to describe and evaluate this approach.

Though the experience of phobias is relatively common and their physical characteristics are generally well understood, there is no real consensus on the neurobiological basis of phobias. Instead, there are currently several different models and theories that work to try to understand how and why phobias occur in the human brain. Most hypotheses regarding phobias take a different approach, from biological to psychoanalytic to evolutionary. Is there one model that seems "less wrong" or more satisfying in our efforts to understand the biology of phobias? Using the various models, how do phobias seem to come about? How does thinking about phobias add to our understanding of the brain and behavior?

Introduction: Almost everyone has an irrational fear or two—of mice, for example, or your annual dental checkup. For most people, these fears are minor. But when fears become so severe that they cause tremendous anxiety and interfere with your normal life, they’re called phobias. A phobia is an intense fear of something that, in reality, poses little or no actual danger. Common phobias and fears include closed-in places, heights, highway driving, flying insects, snakes, and needles. However, we can develop phobias of virtually anything. Most phobias develop in childhood, but they can also develop in adults. If you

After several combined events of the white rat and the loud noise, Watson and Rayner also tested if other furry animals such as a rabbit and a dog also elicited a fear response. They discovered that in fact, they did. Even a fur coat, cotton, and a Santa Claus mask caused “Little Albert” distress. This study revealed that if a child is conditioned to be afraid of an animal, this fear can shift to other animals without the distinct conditioning for each animal (Jones, 1960). This concept is known as generalization, which is the

aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation. The experiment consisted of children from the age’s three to six being split and put into three separate rooms with a bunch of toys and an adult, in which they observed how the adults interacted/played with the toys. In one room, the children witnessed the adult acting aggressively towards a toy called the bobo doll. When it was time for the children to individually go back in the room to play, the majority of the children reciprocated what they saw the adults doing. Another set of children were placed in a room and observed to a non-aggressive model (adult) where the model played with everything but the Bobo doll. When the children were placed in the room, the majority of them acted in the same manner as the adult previously in the room. Lastly, another set of children were put into a room without any sort of model; they played accordingly without any influence. In relation to my survey, six out of ten people stated how they have witnessed a bad experience happen to someone and later took on that phobia. In conclusion, I believe the Bobo experiment supports my hypothesis of how phobias can be inherited by influence instead of by

Pamela Kulbarsh (2014) once wrote in her article titled Phobic Disorders: What Do You Fear? that “to be defined as a phobia, the fear must cause some level of physical or psychological impairment. […] Phobia is a fear gone awry. A phobia twists the normal fear response into something that is difficult, if not, impossible to control.” There are many different types of phobias; however, there are four ways in which a phobia can be categorized. The four different categories that a fear can be classified are as follows: animal, environment, situational, and injection/injury. A phobia involving an animal means a person has an intense fear of any particular animal whether it be a dog or a spider. The next type of phobia is an environmental phobia

Phobia is an acquired fear whenever we sense danger or when we are confronted with something new or unknown that seems potentially dangerous. It can be social anxiety disorder which characterized by excessive fear or anxiety about one or more social situations or specific phobia that developed when a person has an encounter with an object or situation that involves or provokes fear. Phobias vary in severity among individuals. Although phobias are common, they do not necessarily cause significant disruption of everyday activities.

The subject of phobia can still be considered as a mystery as no concrete answers to why phobia occurs. The psychologist are still making serious attempt and experiments to find the cause and finding an answer to the problems of

Behaviourism proposes that we are born a tabula rasa and that all subsequent behaviour is a result of learning from the environment. Classical conditioning was founded by Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s who discovered that by pairing meat powder (the unconditioned stimulus) with a neutral stimulus repeatedly, he could condition the dogs to salivate every time the bell rang. It is possible that Anna learned to fear snakes through a

Regarding the scientific research and treatment, phobia is also a type of mental disorder or illness. A phobia is an anxiety disorder marked by a persistent, irrational fear and avoidance of a specific object, situation, or activity. The Canadian Psychological Association’s fact sheet has revealed that Phobia is a common disease. More than one in every 10 Canadians suffer from this disease. Therefore, this paper tries to attempt causes, symptoms, and treatments of specific phobia.

Diana’s behavioral influences are Diana’s reaction to birds and how she associates stress with her phobia even unconsciously. Diana is not able to manage her emotions when she sees a bird. She panics and she hides herself until she feels calm there is no bird in sight. Social influences could be bad if Diana’s friend teased her. This will make her psychological disorder worse.

Phobias have been something that has grown increasingly present in today’s world. Most of the research I have gathered has been formulated from research gathered by other people, but also my own experience with phobias. According to Sigmund Freud “phobias are a manifestation of an unresolved unconscious conflict.” However, this theory has’t been consistently shown, neither has the prediction that if treated through behavioural therapy a phobia will re-emerge in another form. Phobias have many different aspects to them, such as how a phobia affects the brain, what are the symptoms of a phobia, what are some of the most or least common phobias, and what is a phobia in the first place?

Little Albert was a 9-Month-old infant who was tested to see what his reactions to various stimuli would be. He was shown various items that he was already familiar to such as a white rat, a rabbit, a monkey and various other things. Albert was described as “on the whole stolid and unemotional” and showed no fear to any other the stimuli. What did startle him and cause him to be afraid was if a hammer was struck again a bar behind his head. This is what would cause him to burst into tears. Albert developed phobias of objects that shared some of the same characteristics of the rat, and this process is known as generalization. This study shows that classical conditioning can cause phobias.