PSYC1024 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Coulrophobia, Tachycardia, Panic Disorder
2 Jan 2019
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What are some key features of anxiety disorders?
Avoidance of some feared object or situation- avoiding confronting situations, situatio
Social anxiety: public speaking, meeting new people, members of the opposite s
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Specific phobia: spiders, snakes, heights, blood, dogs, elevators, planes etc.
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Panic disorder: a fear of having panic attacks, avoidance of triggers (usually certai
e.g. driving, walking up stairs, closed spaces, open spaces, physical exertion
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Physiological symptoms of anxiety
Increased heart rate
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Increased respiration
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Stomach ulcers
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Decreased salivation
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Freezing etc.
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What is Mowrerās two-stage learning of fear and avoidance?
Orval Mowrer (1907-1982) was an American professor of psychology who developed,
anxiety problems develop within individuals
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This theory sought to employ both classical and operant conditionings principles to ex
of so many of the anxiety disorders
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The essence of the theory is:
Classical conditioning gives rise to an initial fear of something
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Operant conditioning keeps that fear going because people avoid the conditione
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Thus fear and anxiety are maintained by the combination of classical and operan
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Implication is that extinction of the associations will lead to a reduction in anxie
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E.g.
Coulrophobia- fear of clowns
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Phase 1: imagine there is a young boy whose parents take him to a circus, then
clown looks quite weird and this upsets the boy. Not only this, but when the boy
scary dog there (children are sometimes naturally afraid of dogs)Ć the child i
when a clown is present, bad things happen (scary dog shows up)
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The child experiences a lot of fear. An association between clowns and the emo
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Suppose the principles of classical conditioning spread the fear of the one clown
them, elicits fear! (Spreading effect)
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Phase 2: from that day one, the child avoids situations where he might come into
remind him of clowns and make him feel all of those negative physical things
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He avoids the situations more and more because when he avoids his anxiety and
reinforcement at play (removal of a negative outcome increasing the frequency
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Lecture 7-What is Exposure
Tuesday, 24 July 2018
2:45 pm
ations they might embarrass themselves
ite sex, job interviews etc.
certain places) where a panic attack might be brought on-
ed, among other things, a theory seeking to explain how
to explain the avoidance behaviours which are characteristic
tioned stimulus (because of negative reinforcement)
erant conditioning operating in tandem
anxiety
en get the child to have photo taken with the clown. The
boy is with the clown he also gets afraid because there is a
ild is conditioned to feel fear because now he know that
emotion of fear (conditioned fear response is created
lown, to all clown- now they, and anything associated with
e into contact with triggers (conditioned fear stimuli) which
s
ty and fear, it is removed or reduced. This is negative
ncy of the behaviour)
reinforcement at play (removal of a negative outcome increasing the frequency
But this isnāt very helpful, over time his behaviour is reinforced so much that he
go to any sports games because there might be hotdogs there which might rem
cant even go outside of the house because a clown could be anywhere! Most im
arenāt that bad!
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In summary:
Classical conditioning (an early childhood experience with a clown where something n
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Operant conditioning (avoiding clowns from that day forth maintains the fear of the c
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It maintains the fear behaviours (avoidance) via negative reinforcement
Avoiding is reinforced because it removes something negative (i.e. CR: the fear o
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Because clowns are always avoided the person never learns that they are not sc
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Social anxiety
Phase 1: imagine a person who has to give a talk in front of a large audience, but some
reality and in their own mind). They do something silly during the talk, but they also th
threatened (their social standing is threatened) and fear conditioning occurs
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As a result of this conditioning they come to form automatic associations between nu
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Phase 2: from this day on the person avoids many social situations. Some social situati
those social situations he does what clinical psychologists have termed āsafety behavi
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These behaviours are negatively reinforced (they serve to reduce anxiety in the situati
anxiety is good in the short term for the person
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E.g. people might engage in excessive amounts of rehearsing, might drink alcohol to re
contact, might only go out with their best friends
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But this isnāt very helpful. All of this avoidance of social situations and use of safety be
anxiety. They person never gets the chance to learn that id they didnāt avid, if they did
outcome would not likely occur- and even if it did it wouldnāt be so bad
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Thus, avoidance and safety behaviours maintain that initial fear response
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What is exposure?
Exposure is the repeated engagement with a feared object, person, place or thing unti
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It is based on the principle of extinction which we talked about in our conditioning lec
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Extinction is the repeated presentation of the triggering stimulus (conditioned stimulu
(usually negative) outcome
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What is extinction?
Experiment outline:
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Subjects: healthy human individuals
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Apparatus: computer screen; skin conductance device; electric shock device
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Procedure: discriminative learning procedure. For one stimulus you learn that it predi
the other you learn that it doesnāt predict a shock
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Conditioned stimulus- red square
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Unconditioned stimulus- electric shock
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Document Summary
Avoidance of some feared object or situation- avoiding confronting situations, situatio. Social anxiety: public speaking, meeting new people, members of the opposite s. Specific phobia: spiders, snakes, heights, blood, dogs, elevators, planes etc. Panic disorder: a fear of having panic attacks, avoidance of triggers (usually certai e. g. driving, walking up stairs, closed spaces, open spaces, physical exertion. Orval mowrer (1907-1982) was an american professor of psychology who developed, anxiety problems develop within individuals. This theory sought to employ both classical and operant conditionings principles to ex of so many of the anxiety disorders. Classical conditioning gives rise to an initial fear of something. Operant conditioning keeps that fear going because people avoid the conditione. Thus fear and anxiety are maintained by the combination of classical and operan. Implication is that extinction of the associations will lead to a reduction in anxie.
