Explanations of phobias

Behavioural – classical conditioning 

WATSON AND RAYNER (1920) conditioned a 9-month old baby – Little Albert – to fear a white rat and this then extended to anything white and furry (e.g. Santa Claus’ beard). This is how classical conditioning worked on the child:

Before conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus (Loud Noise of the Hammer) = Fear 

Neutral Stimulus (White Rat) = No response/fear 

During conditioning 

Unconditioned stimulus (Loud Noise) + Neutral Stimulus (White Rat) = Fear – association is taking place

After conditioning 

Conditioned stimulus (White Rat) = Fear through association to the loud noise as the child expected it when he saw the rat.

Belief that people learn phobias through association. This may be able to explain why we form some phobias:

• Generalisations occur when we produce a conditioned response to a stimulus that is similar to the original phobias.
• Extinction occurs when the stimulus no longer produced the conditioned response.

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Psychoanalytic 

FREUD (1909) developed the theory revolving around the ID, EGO and SUPEREGO. Any thoughts and ideas of the ID that produce anxiety are repressed and locked in the unconscious mind. These would then be displaced and attributed to an object that becomes the stimulus for the phobia. 

• Thus, Little Hans displaced his fear of castration onto horses, which developed his hippo-phobia.

For more detailed information – Freud (1909)

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Biochemical/Genetic 

The theory of preparedness believes that humans are pre-programmed to fear certain objects that may be harmful in order to survive – threat to evolution.

Cook and Mineka (1989) split a group of monkeys into four different conditions of objects they would be exposed to. They all saw the same species of monkey being scared of the object assigned and were then tested on their dear:

• Crocodile = led to fear of the toy
• Flower = led to no fear
• Snake = led to fear of the toy
• Rabbit = led to no fear

The researchers believed that the monkeys were prepared in their DNA to fear the dangerous objects.

OST (1992) examined people who were needle-phobic within the same family and found that 64% of patients had at least 1 immediate relative with the phobia. In the general population, 3% of people have this phobia, so it is difficult to blame it on the environment or any other factors.

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Cognitive

Belief that our emotions are the result of interpretations we make of our experiences in accordance to our existing schemas. People with phobias are likely to:

• Exaggerate negative consequences
• Underestimate their own coping abilities 
• Show “catastrophic interpretation”

DiNardo (1988) studied a group of people with dog-related phobias and found a matched-design group who did not have the fear. It was found that 56% of the dog phobias reported having had traumatic experiences with dogs but so did 50% of non-phobias. 

• This is because the participants with the phobia tended to focus and become anxious of having a similar experiences in the future and this affected their information process with dogs.