PSYCHOLOGY

Classical Conditioning of Phobias

Classical Conditioning of Phobias

Introduction

The word phobia is derived from Greek language. It means fear, it can be any kind of fear such as fear from spiders, heights, riding in cares etc. These fears seem to be strange and unreasonable to comprehend logically. A phobia can be defined as an awkward fear from a specific conditions and objects. According to a survey result, 60% of population on average suffer from these fears (Bourn.e. E. J. 2011).

Discussion

Usually majority of people suffer from only sub clinical state of phobia that are not considered as severe, however, people who experience severe effects of phobia are diagnosed by DSM-IV-TR. According to research around 10% of people may suffer from simple phobia. Phobics have clear knowledge about their unreasonable phobias but they just cannot deal with it due to their firm phobic beliefs. Some of the common types of phobias include animal, social, dental, water, height phobias and claustrophobia. Less common types of phobia includes cotton wool, chocolate, buttons, dolls and vegetable phobias (Davey. G. C., 2007. p. 247-253).

The field of Psychopathology has given deep explanations pertaining to development of phobias among humans. Some call it result of inner conflicts in oneself or responses to non related life events. Classical conditioning of phobias is also one of the explanations given in recent times. It involves generation of phobias via evolutionary selection.

The case of Little Albert

Classical conditional of phobias can be well explained by critically going through the known case of little Albert of Watson and Rayner in 1920. Albert was 11 months old during that the time case study conducted. The aim of Watson and Rayner was to create a conditional fear in Albert of his white pet rat. It was achieved by forming a pair of the rat with a loud noise generated by iron bar strike. In this case rat is a conditonal stimulus or CS and loud noise is unconditional stimulus or UCS. This process was repeated several times and made Albert cry. Now he cried whenever a rat and loud noise was introduced to him. This is a clear understanding of phobias, where a phobia is formed by associating a phobic object with a distressing event or feeling such as dental phobia, fear from dogs or choking phobia (Field. P. A. & Nightingale. Z. C., 2009. p. 301-319).

Simple Classical Condiotning of Phobias

Two process model was also used for explaining phobias conditional associations with the stimulus. It explains that classical conditioning is liable for acquiring the fear however, phobic may also learn regarding avoidance technique used for these phobias in order to reduce the effect of fear. This concept helped in determining and designing the behavioral therapies for particular phobias in which phobics were made to experience phobic stimulus. These therapies are generally known as exposed therapies (Field. P. A. & Nightingale. Z. C., 2009. p. 301-319).

Critical Evaluation of Classical Conidiotning of Phobias

However, alone simple classical conditioning approach of phobia is not enough to explain all ...