The Cause of Phobias Essay - 721 Words

The Cause of Phobias Thesis: We are not born with phobias – a phobia is learnt because it has become associated with an object or an experience that is unpleasant. According to the behaviourist, a phobia has to be learnt. This can happen in one of two ways: classical or operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is where an object/experience becomes associated with something unpleasant or causes pain/fear. J Watson and R Rayner tested this in a controversial experiment in 1920, in the case of little Albert. The stimulus may be all kinds of things, an object, a person or a sound. By itself it has no effect but once it has become associated with the UCS (unconditional stimulus)†¦show more content†¦By not going to the pool the unpleasant experience is avoided, this is negative reinforcement. Some areas where classical conditioning could be criticised are the ethics involved with the experiments. The person who is to be conditioned would experience an enormous amount of upset and discomfort. It is said that a phobia can be unlearned; this process is called extinction. I believe that for extinction to take place it would be a longer and be even more traumatic process for the participant than the original conditioning. This may well be the reason why little Albert was removed from the experiment before extinction took place. In operant conditioning, no consideration is given to the possibility of there being a valid reason for the person to be upset by a certain stimulus or place. If the problem was addressed then perhaps phobia development could be avoided and the experience or object could become bearable or perhaps even enjoyable. Anti-Thesis: A phobia develops after we have had a bad experience, perhaps as a child, which we have repressed. Or what if we have watched the fear that a stimulus triggers in someone else – will this cause a fear in us? 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