Phobic disorders are common place in today’s society, but as to how they are formed is a question asked by many theorists. Theories of development offer some explanation as to why Anna may have a fear of snakes whilst Bjorn may not. Learning theories such as Classical Conditioning and Social Learning Theory suggest that phobic disorders are learnt through various means; whilst evolutionary theories suggest that phobic disorders are innate and inherited from parents.
Some of the first explanations for the development of phobias were based on Classical conditioning (also known as fear conditioning), which is the repeated pairing of a neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), leading to the UCS becoming a Conditioned Stimulus …show more content…
Although outdated, it could be used to explain Anna’s snake phobia. It could be suggested that Anna’s phobia is caused by a past negative experience with a snake, such as one trying to bite her, being associated with a feeling of fear or danger; leading to the development of the phobia. It could therefore be assumed that the reason that Bjorn does not have a phobia of snakes because he never had a negative experience with snake that he could associate with fear in order for the phobia to develop. Support for the theory comes from research by Kunze, Arntz and Kindt (2014), who found that after conditioning a group of participants on day 1 of the study by introducing a conditioned stimulus, the conditioned group showed a much higher startle response to the stimulus compared to the control on day 2, therefore showing that fear acquisition took place through Classical Condtioning; however it must be noted that a significant number of participants had to be dropped from the study for various reasons, which may have had an impact on the accuracy of …show more content…
In the case of Anna’s fear of snakes, it could be suggested that Anna observed a model, most likely her parents, showing a negative attitude towards snakes. With proper motivation, Anna replicated this negative behaviour, leading to the development of her phobia of snakes. Evidence to support the claim that Anna developed her phobia through observation of a model comes from research by Gerull and Rapee in 2002. Results of this research suggest that after ‘fear-relevant stimuli’ of either a rubber snake or a rubber spider were paired with a wither a positive or negative expression from the mother of the child, when being exposed to the stimuli again after 1 and 10 minutes those children who saw the negative expression during priming showed a higher level of fear towards the stimuli compared to those in the positive expression group; with girls showing a greater fear than boys after acquisition, however this can be put down to the idea that children will show stronger replication of a model if the model is of their own gender, as seen in Bandura’s Bobo Doll research, rather than boys showing less fear towards stimuli. This therefore suggests that Anna viewing a negative model may have led to
Some of the first explanations for the development of phobias were based on Classical conditioning (also known as fear conditioning), which is the repeated pairing of a neutral stimulus (NS) with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), leading to the UCS becoming a Conditioned Stimulus …show more content…
Although outdated, it could be used to explain Anna’s snake phobia. It could be suggested that Anna’s phobia is caused by a past negative experience with a snake, such as one trying to bite her, being associated with a feeling of fear or danger; leading to the development of the phobia. It could therefore be assumed that the reason that Bjorn does not have a phobia of snakes because he never had a negative experience with snake that he could associate with fear in order for the phobia to develop. Support for the theory comes from research by Kunze, Arntz and Kindt (2014), who found that after conditioning a group of participants on day 1 of the study by introducing a conditioned stimulus, the conditioned group showed a much higher startle response to the stimulus compared to the control on day 2, therefore showing that fear acquisition took place through Classical Condtioning; however it must be noted that a significant number of participants had to be dropped from the study for various reasons, which may have had an impact on the accuracy of …show more content…
In the case of Anna’s fear of snakes, it could be suggested that Anna observed a model, most likely her parents, showing a negative attitude towards snakes. With proper motivation, Anna replicated this negative behaviour, leading to the development of her phobia of snakes. Evidence to support the claim that Anna developed her phobia through observation of a model comes from research by Gerull and Rapee in 2002. Results of this research suggest that after ‘fear-relevant stimuli’ of either a rubber snake or a rubber spider were paired with a wither a positive or negative expression from the mother of the child, when being exposed to the stimuli again after 1 and 10 minutes those children who saw the negative expression during priming showed a higher level of fear towards the stimuli compared to those in the positive expression group; with girls showing a greater fear than boys after acquisition, however this can be put down to the idea that children will show stronger replication of a model if the model is of their own gender, as seen in Bandura’s Bobo Doll research, rather than boys showing less fear towards stimuli. This therefore suggests that Anna viewing a negative model may have led to