According to the Cambridge dictionary, a phobia is ,an extreme fear or dislike of a particular thing or situation, especially one that cannot be reasonably explained. A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, which causes an irrational fear towards an object of situation (Bourne, 2011). Statistics indicate that approximately 1 in 23 people suffer from phobias. That's nearly 4.5% of the population. Phobias can have a huge interference in people's lives as they can make it hard to maintain a normal daily routine, especially as they can start to occur in early childhood. There are several types of phobias. Specific phobia, this is when a phobia is of a particular object or specific situation e.g animal types, heights and clowns. Secondly is social …show more content…
Classical conditioning theory involves learning a new behaviour through the process of association. A type of learning where two stimuli are repeatedly paired to eventually elicit a response from the first stimulus alone. The classical conditioning theory applied to phobias suggests that the subject must have faced a fear in the presence of the phobia-causing stimuli. As a result, this stimulus triggers and anxious response due to its association with the fear. The classical conditioning theory has been around since Pavlov, 1890 and in turn has been developed further. The original study that applied the classical conditioning theory to the development of phobias was Watson and Rayner, (1920). Their paper attempted to learn the process of conditioning an emotional reactions by using a number of infants to see their reactions to fire, dogs, cats and any other stimuli that was thought to be innately frightening. They did find that loud noise did elicit an innate fear reaction. Their most famous case was the Little Albert study, a 9 month old infant, who was used to test if people could in fact be conditioned. They paired a white lab rat with striking a steel bar with a hammer behind Albert’s head. Little Albert began to show fear response towards the white lab rat, therefore suggesting had had been conditioned to do so. The paper concluded that many other phobias may have been developed in a similar …show more content…
Which could indicate that fear responses can only be learnt from evolutionary fears. Suggesting that the conditioning theory can not be solely used to explain the development of phobias. Furthermore, Di Nardo brings to light that not everyone who experiences a traumatic event goes on to develop a phobia, which again supports the idea that the classic conditioning theory cannot explain phobias alone, there may be other factors. In spite of this, Watson’s contributions brought the study of behavior into a more scientific and observable discipline. It additionally gave an alternative to Freudian Psychoanalysis, which related phobic responses to to psychosexual development (Freud, S, 1909). Giving an overall generalisation of fears and demonstrates that emotions and phobias can be
Classical conditioning states that learning is a gradual process, that it is not possible for a subject to be classically condition in only one trial. However, if you eat something and become sick from it, there is a very good probability that you will develop a strong distaste for that food. This effect is known as taste aversion, which has brought up many questions about classical conditioning.
In observational learning, a child takes note of what his or her mother or father considers to be threatening. On the other hand, children can also be conditioned by their own life experiences through a process called operant conditioning (SOURCE). In some instances, children tend to generalize their fears, subsequently forming a phobia. For example, a young girl who became increasingly cautious of flying insects after an unpleasant encounter with a nest of agitated yellow jackets. After being assaulted by these creatures, she associated all flying bugs with the painful sting of a yellow jacket. Of course, children can also be classically conditioned to display a fearful response; that is, they learn to associate an unconditioned fear-relevant stimulus with a conditioned stimulus, provoking a conditioned, fearful response. One of the most well-known examples of this is an experiment involving a young boy, famously dubbed Little Albert. Little Albert learned to fear small furry animals in a laboratory setting when the presence of these creatures was paired with loud banging noises (SOURCE). From the aforementioned experiments and studies, it is undeniable that external circumstances and experiences assist in the configuration of fear in
One of the most famous example of fear conditioning is the Little Albert experiment conducted by Watson and Rayner in 1920. In this experiment, an infant, Albert, was presented with a white rat, and as expected, Albert initially displayed no signs of fear and began touching and playing with the rat. Soon, the experimenters began pairing the presentation of the rat with a loud noise (US) produced by banging a hammer on a steel bar. The noise caused Albert to startle and cry (UR). After several pairing, Albert learned to fear the rat (CS) and would crawl away or cry (CR) when the rat was subsequently presented (Watson and Rayner, 1920)
Conquering phobias is a specialty of hypnotherapists. A phobia is a compulsive fear of a specified situation or object (Knight 2). A few types of phobias are fear of open spaces, fear of snow, fear of the cold, fear of marriage, fear of insanity, fear of being alone, fear of darkness, fear of disease, fear of beards, fear of birds, fear of being stared at, fear of bein...
In the following essay I will be looking into the study conducted by Watson and Rayner (1920) on a small child known as ‘Little Albert’. The experiment was an adaptation of earlier studies on classical conditioning of stimulus response, one most common by Ivan Pavlov, depicting the conditioning of stimulus response in dogs. Watson and Rayner aimed to teach Albert to become fearful of a placid white rat, via the use of stimulus associations, testing Pavlov’s earlier theory of classical conditioning.
Fear is a vital response for survival, in the face of threats and is also an important component of behavioural defence systems in mammals. Ivan Pavlov (1920’s) introduced the concept of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning can be used to learn various emotions including fear; this is known as a conditioned emotional response (Carlson, 2010, p.g 369). In this essay, Pavlovian (cued) fear conditioning and contextual fear conditioning will be discussed, and then the neural mechanisms underlying fear conditioning will be evaluated using various studies carried out on animals and humans.
Phobias are considered a part of anxiety disorders, a phobia is an intense and irrational fear of a certain thing or situation. Some examples of phobias include fear of heights, insects, and even talking in front of a large crowd. The intensity of phobias differ from patient to patient but the severity of phobia...
There are three kinds of phobias: simple phobia, social phobia, and panic attacks. Simple phobias, also called specific phobias, are fears of a specific thing, such as spiders or being in a closed place. Most simple phobias develop during childhood and eventually disappear. Specific phobia is a marked fear of a specific object or situation. It is a category for any phobias other than agoraphobia and social phobia. The categories of specific phobias are 1. situational phobias such as: fear of elevators, airplanes, enclosed places, public transportation, tunnels, or bridges; 2. fear of the natural environment such as: storms, water, or heights; 3. animal phobias such as: fear of dogs, snakes, insects, or mice; 4. blood-injection-injury phobia such as: fear of seeing blood or an injury, or of receiving an injection. (Wood 520).
Classical conditioning refers to a type of learning in which a previously neutral stimuli took on the ability to stimulate a conditioned response in an individual (Gormezano & Moore, 1966). To prove that environment was more impactful than genetics, Watson conducted an experiment on an infant, little Albert. Initially, Albert showed little fear towards rats. When Watson repeatedly exposed Albert to the rat accompanied by a loud noise, the latter began to develop fear towards not just the rat but also other furry animals. Watson successfully showed that the acquisition of a phobia can be explained by classical conditioning (Watson & Watson, 1921). Regardless of their genes, the associations of the right stimuli can result in the development of a new behaviour in any individual.
Classical Conditioning was a phenomenon that a man named Ivan Pavlov explored in the twentieth-century. His work laid the foundation for many other psychologists such as John Watson. Pavlov’s idea came when he seized on an incidental observation. He noticed putting food in a dogs mouth caused salvation. However, the dog not only salivated to the food it began to also salivate to mere sight of the food, or the food dish. He began experimenting; first he slid the food presented the food by sliding the food bowl and blowing meat powder into the dogs mouth at the same exact moment. They paired it with a neutral stimuli event the dog could see but did not associate it with food (Myers, 2014, p.256). Food in the mouth automatically, unconditionally triggers the salivary reflex. Pavlov called drooling the unconditioned response and the food the unconditioned stimulus. Salvation in response to a tone is learned, it is conditioned upon the dogs associating the tone with the food it is called conditioned response (Myers, 2014, p.256). The stimulus that used to be neutral is the conditioned stimulus. I found it interesting and relating to everyday life because my dog often does the same. We keep his food in the garage so opening the garage door would be the conditioned stimulus. As soon as the garage door opens my dog begins to salivate which is the conditioned response. Whereas,
How Lauren learned she had a fear in flying? Using the Classical Conditioning theory the possibilities could be endless. Classical conditioning in simple terms is the method in which one determines why and the cause of a condition as well as what has brought it about. There are many stimulus both conditioned and unconditioned that can cause fear or other problems, but the major reason for causes regarding the fear of flying has been mentioned in several articles regarding anxiety disorders.
Ivan Pavlov developed a theory called classical conditioning which proposes that learning process occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus. Classical conditioning involves placing a neutral signal before a naturally occurring reflex like associating the food with the bell in Pavlov experiment. In classical conditioning, behavior is learnt by association where a stimulus that was originally neutral can become a trigger for substance use or cravings due to repeated associations between those stimuli and substance use (Pavlov, 1927).
Introduce Topic: A phobia as defined by medicalnewstoday.com, “is an irrational fear, a kind of anxiety disorder in which the sufferer has a relentless dread of a situation, living creature, place or thing.”
I. Introduction of classical conditioning Classical conditioning also called as Pavlovian conditioning or respondent conditioning. It is a kind of learning a new behavior through association that when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) and evokes a conditioned response (CR). It also is a learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus (Cherry, 2014). Classical conditioning has much strength such as can help to explain all aspects of human behavior and many of advertisers will use classical conditioning to advertise their produces, however it also have some weaknesses such as all classical conditioning responses must involve a reflex and classical conditioning is a completely physical process, learning is not important as reflected in scenario. This paper will talk about the strengths and the weaknesses of classical conditioning theory followed by a brief description of the scenario and the strengths and weaknesses of applying classical conditioning on it.
This paper is focused on how fear as a subject is being perceived by many as a dominant and primitive human emotion. An uncontrollable energy that’s exists and created within every individual, which is directed towards an object or a given situation that does not present an actual danger. The individual then analyzes that the fear is contradictory and thus cannot help the reaction. Gradually, the phobia aims to build up and aggravate as the fear of fear response takes hold. Eventually they distinguish their fear responses as negative, and go out of their way to avoid those reactions. ‘Fear is derived as a basic feeling and therefore created by us – it is not something we have, but something we do. The principle of fear is to keep us safe.’