Phobias

Phobias

1. Classical Conditioning

   • Pavlov
     • Key Words
       • Neutral Stimulus
         • A stimulus that has no effect on the participant
       • Classical Conditioning
         • A learning process that makes an association between two things
       • Association
         • Link between neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus that makes the neutral stimulus cause the same response
       • Generalisation
         • Conditioned response is produced to things that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
       • Phobia
         • A fear that can prevent normal living in some way
       • Extinction
         • The loss of a classically conditioned response
     • Pavlov's Dogs
       • To test if Pavlov's dogs could be made to produce saliva even when there wasn't food around
         • Originally thought it was the sound of the footsteps that made the dogs produce saliva
       • Rang a bell, dog didn't salivate. Then rang the bell and straight after gave the dogs food.
         • This is the conditioning process that uses association and he repeated this over and over
       • After that, when he rang the bell the dogs salivated even though there wasn't any food
         • The conditioned stimulus and then makes the conditioned response

2. Social Learning Theory

   • Key Words
     • Vicarious Reinforcement
       • Learning through the actions of others that have been rewarded for their behaviour
     • Modelling
       • Imitating the behaviour of someone
   • Humans
     • If a person is rewarded for a certain behaviour the other people around them will copy the behaviour so that they get a reward too
       • E.G. Ben is a toddler in a nursery. He bites other children and then gets given toys. Other children notice this and then begin to bite others too, so that they can get toys.
         • However, if Ben was told off and the toys removed, the other children would be less likely to copy his behaviour
     • Sometimes phobias run in families
       • Children could be observing and imitating their parents' fears. So that means that if your mother or father was scared of lightning and they made it obvious that they were to you, then you would also fear lightning.
   • Animals
     • Mineka et al 1984

3. Curing phobias

4. Preparedness