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A2 AQA PSYA 4 - Phobias - Share your essay plans

Just so we can help each other with revision. I will post one essay plan a week until there is nothing left for phobias (will then move on to another thread with another topic).

So todays essay :

Outline and evaluate psychological explanations of phobias

Behavioural factors – behaviors are learned through classical and operant conditioning.
Classical conditioning especially explains specific phobias. A previously neutral thing starts to trigger anxiety because it becomes associated with something frightening. E.g., being chased to a lift, an association will be built between anxiety and that particular lift. This anxiety then becomes generalized to all lifts (stimulus generalization). Consequently, the person will avoid using lifts in the future. Operant conditioning is when the person fear goes when they get away from the feared object (negative reinforcement) – in this case adopting other alternatives such as using stairs.

Watson & Rayner (1920) conditioned Little Albert to fear white furry objects by pairing the neutral stimulus of a white rat with the unconditioned stimulus of a sudden loud noise to produce an innate fear response, demonstrating how phobias can be learned by classical conditioning.
- Methods and findings of study must be understood in context of early history of experimental psychology, these experiments would not be allowed to have taken place in today’s society.
- Experimental design not carefully constructed. Rayner did not develop an object means to evaluate Albert reactions, instead relying on their own interpretations
- Ethical concerns
- Behaviorism states that everything is learned due to the environment. Thus, determinism is a key idea. It happens to be one of the learning perspective’s main assumptions.
- Laboratory – low ecol validity
+ Laboratory – variables tightly controlled

Overall Behavioural theory factors Evaluation:
+ Very effective at treating phobias, by getting person to change response to stimulus. Treating cause of problem
- Davey found that only 7% of spider phobic’s could recall having a traumatic experience – suggesting other factors e.g. biological
- Not everyone with a traumatic event goes to form a phobia (car accident)
- Can not explain all counts of phobias
- Unethical
+ Experimental support

Psychodynamic Theory – Phobias hide an unconscious fear. Fear creates so much anxiety that it’s displayed onto something less frightening or embarrassing.

Freud used the case study of Little Hans to support his theory. Little Hans had a fear of horses, which Freud thought was caused by oedipal conflict. He claimed that Hans was attracted to his mother and frightened that his father would punish him for being his rival. The fear created so much anxiety and guilt that it was displaced onto horses which were like Hans’s father because they wore bridles and had big penises.
- Unscientific because they cant be proven wrong
- It doesn’t consider different factors such as Behavioural - Hans had seen a horse fall down on the streets-this may have caused his fear for horses through classical conditioning
- Too much emphasis on sex
- Only one boy – generalized
- Only one sex
- Unconsciousness cant be proven to exist
- Case study- small sample
- Reports written by Freud, so based on own interpretation
+ Ecological validity
+ First to recognize the unconsciousness
+ Case study – detailed
+ First theory to recognize importance of psychological factors

Cognitive Theory – Phobias originate from maladaptive thinking. For example an overfull bath may generate a belief that open taps are associated with flooding. This turns into a fear of open taps.

Beck & Emery said that interactions between cognitive processes and belief of vulnerability make them more likely to interpret stimuli as being threatening.

+Face validity – does take reports from patients
- descriptive rather then explanatory
- describes thought patterns and not why and how it was developed
- Cause and effect
+ Makes sense that people with anxiety disorders fear the world
- Ignores other factors such as biological