An Investigation Into The Association Between Previous Unpleasant Experiences And Phobias
An Investigation Into The Association Between Previous Unpleasant Experiences And Phobias
Abstract
For this investigation I tried to find out whether bad experiences are caused by phobias. I interviewed 20 people from the ages of 15-18 years old, asking them things like "Do you have a phobia similar to a close friend or family member?" I found that 28% of people asked have had a bad experience with their phobia. In general, I found that with all phobias, the percentage of people who had actually had a bad experience with their phobia was quite small.
Introduction
A phobia is a persistent, intense, irrational fear. They're not always sensible, don't go away easily and evoke very strong emotions. The conditioning explanation about phobias suggests that we "learn" our phobias.
Step 1 Classical conditioning is when you associate a stimulus with a response, such as thinking that spiders are scary and that when you come into contact with one you will get scared. The phobia usually starts with a bad experience.
Step 2 Operant conditioning (avoidance learning) is to do with positive or negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is avoiding your fear you feel much better for not facing your fear and consequently you enjoy the feeling of relief of not having come into contact with your phobia. Positive reinforcement is facing your phobia the more you come into come into contact with your fear, the more you get used to it so you don't become as scared.
According to the principles of Social Learning Theory, phobias are learned from observation of other people. For example a child watches her older brother's behaviour when he finds a spider in the bath. He runs away from the bathroom screaming. His mother calms him down and reassures him. The little girl sees a spider and imitates her brother's behaviour. He acts as a model because he is similar, more powerful and was reinforced by his...
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