
What is a phobia?
 An exaggerated fear of
an object or situation
 The fear is irrational –
the fear of the thing is
greater than the risk
posed by the thing
itself.
Spiders
 Social Phobia (afraid
of being with people)
 Flying
 Open spaces
 Small spaces

Heights
 Being sick/vomiting
 Cancer
 Thunderstorms
 Death and dead things


Does anyone have a phobia?

How do you think phobias could be learned?

Who did we learn about who was given a
phobia?
 Little Albert

According to behaviourists, phobias are
learned, just like any other behaviour

Fill in the gaps to show how a phobia could have
been conditioned. Chose one of the following:
 John has a phobia of dogs. This is because he was
once attacked by a dog
 If you have a phobia yourself, explain how a negative
experience caused that phobia
 Make up a phobia, and explain how it came about
Before conditioning
UCS
(being attacked)

NS
(dog)
UCR
(Fear)
No Response
During conditioning
UCS
NS
(being attacked )
(dog)

After conditioning
CS
(dog)
UCR
(fear and pain)

CR
(fear)
It was first developed by Wolpe (1958) and is
used in the treatment of phobias.
 Phobias come about through classical
conditioning, but are maintained through
operant conditioning.

 People avoid what they are afraid of.

Less stressful than flooding

AIM: This therapy aims to extinguish an
undesirable behaviour fear by replacing it
with a more desirable one: relaxation.

Link with the assumptions? The beh.
approach assumes that all behaviour is
learned from the environment. Therefore,
we can unlearn conditioned responses by
manipulating the environment.
What is reciprocal inhibition?
 We can not feel fear and relaxation at the
same time, as the two emotions are not
compatible.


Read the description of the process of SD

In vivo: direct experience

In vitro: using visualisation
TASK
 Name some phobias which you would use in
vivo and in vitro for.


SD uses CC. Feared stimuli are conditioned
through therapy to be associated with
relaxation. This will lead to extinction of the
fear response

SD uses generalisation. It is impossible for
the therapist to account for every possible
fearful situation. Relaxation learned should
be generalisable to other similar stimuli.

In pairs, come up with a hierarchy of fear for
any phobia

In vivo or in vitro?

What did Capafons et al (1998)
find?

What did Klein et al (1983) find?

McGrath (1990) found that SD is successful
for a wide range of anxiety disorders, with
75% of patients with phobias responding to
treatment.
Create a flyer for a clinic which treats phobias
with SD.
 Must contain the following information




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
The aim of the therapy and how it works
The process of the therapy
An example of the therapy in action
Research evidence which supports it’s
effectiveness
It must be written so that someone with no
knowledge of psychology could understand it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taFGE7QELQ

How would you help this woman?