Understanding Phobias: Emily's Experience and Biological Explanations

1. Question Emily has recently become so afraid of social situations that she hardly ever goes out of the house. Even harmless everyday situations, like meeting friends in a café, are terrifying for Emily. Identify three characteristics of phobias shown by Emily. (3 marks) [AO1 = 0, AO2 = 3]

2. answer • Credit up to 3 marks as follows: • Emily’s fear is extreme/severe emotional response (terrified of going out) (1) • Emily’s fear is irrational (she fears everyday situations) (1) • Emily shows avoidance (she goes out as little as possible) (1) • Emily’s fear is disproportionate (fears everyday situations) (1) • Candidates should identify the characteristics of phobias and not gain credit for simply repeating the stem.

3. Biological explanations of phobias

4. Task On a scale of 1 – 10 rate how much anxiety the following pictures cause you to feel. 1 - no anxiety to 10 - most anxiety

9. Ohman et al (2006) : Preparedness The researchers were interested in whether people are genetically predisposed to be afraid of certain objects/situations that could be potentially threatening and so as a consequence develop phobias!

10. Method • Participants were put into two groups – in one condition they were given an electrical shock when looking at pictures of a house or face. In the second condition they were given an electric shock when looking at pictures of a snake or spider. • Both groups showed fear when subsequently shown pictures they had experienced with an electric shock. This was measured by their skin reaction on the galvanic skin response monitor. • Following a period where p’s received no electric shock it was found that the GSR was still higher for those when shown pictures of snakes or spiders.

11. Preparedness theory • Seligman (1971) says that we have developed phobias to objects or situations that are potentially threatening to us thousands of years ago. • Those individuals who developed have a phobia today were those people who avoided those situations in hunter gatherer times and so the behaviour to avoid certain objects or situations has evolved over time and been past on through genetics.

12. Preparedness theory • He continued that there was a biological preparedness – a predisposition to be sensitive to certain stimuli. It is not the fears themselves that are inborn but rather the innate tendency to rapidly acquire a phobia to potentially harmful phenomena.

13. Are all these phobias biologically innate? To have a fear of: • Clowns • Darkness • Planes • Heights • Guns • open spaces • The no 13 or 666 • Bacteria • strangers

14. Think • Can you write a disadvantage of Seligman’s theory?

15. Genes • Some people are more susceptible to developing phobias than others and therefore a genetic account can be used to explain this idea. • How does a psychologist easily study genetic inheritance?

16. Family studies and twin studies • Fryer et al found that those who had first degree relatives with a specific phobia were much more likely to have a specific phobia themselves. • However there was no high concordance rate for social phobias. • What does this suggest once again about biological explanations of phobias?

17. Family studies and concordance rates! • Torgensen (1983) investigated pairs of identical (MZ – monozygotic) twins. They have 100% similar genetic makeup (DZ- Dizygotic twins) have 50% similar genetic makeup. • They investigated twins where at least one pair had agoraphobia and found there was a much higher likelihood for the MZ twins to both have it than the DZ twins.

18. Vulnerability • Some people are more vulnerable to experience anxiety than others • Eysenck proposed that some people are more easily frightened by fear provoking stimuli i.e. movies, heights, bugs etc • The autonomic nervous system controls our emotional responses and so it seems that some people have higher autonomic reactivity which makes them more likely to develop a phobia.

19. Exam question • Briefly describe one biological explanation for phobias. (3 marks)

20. Evaluations • People with different anxiety disorders, i.e. phobias, OCD, agoraphobia etc suffer from different symptoms as a result of the ANS. Thus the link between the ANS and anxiety is much more complicated than Eysenck suggested.

21. Evaluations • Findings by genetic studies could as easily be explained by SLT. For example, close relatives could observe and then imitate the phobia suffered within their families. It is difficult to disentangle the env from genetics.

22. Evaluations • Support from the conditioning theory comes from conditioning studies on humans and animals in lab situations. Ohman found that humans are more likely to be conditioned to fear particular stimuli such as snakes ‘fear relevant’ than stimuli such as flowers ‘fear irrelevant’. • This was also the same for monkeys…Cook and Mineka (1990) conditioned monkeys to fear toy snakes but not toy rabbits and because the monkeys had no previous of any of these stimuli – we can rule out learning

23. Evaluations • There is evidence that the fears acquired under lab conditions isn’t true to real life. Usually conditioned fears can be removed by verbal instruction and so these fears are unlike the fears developed in real life