2. List of Experiments.
Pavlov Classical conditioning
Watson and Rayner (1920) Little Albert.
SLT
Coombes (1980) Two Rats
Mineka et al (1984) Monkeys
Curio (1988) Blackbird warning call – Teacher bird
Leib et al (2000) Children more likely to have a phobia if parents do.
Seligman (1971) Preparedness
Slater and Shield (1969) Identical twins more likely to have similar phobias
Jones (1924) Curing a boy of his Phobia (deconditioned)
Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984) More afraid of ugly, slimy, speedy or sudden movement
3. 1) Classical conditioning and phobias
Classical conditioning A learning process which builds up an association between the two
stimuli
through repeated pairings.
Association The link between the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus that make
the neutral stimulus cause the same response.
Generalisation When a conditioned response is produced to stimuli that are similar to the
conditioned stimulus.
Phobia An intense fear that prevents ‘normal living’ in some way.
Extinction The loss of a classically conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is
repeated many times without the unconditioned stimulus.
4.
5. Classical Conditioning and Phobias
With regard to phobias if a real fear is triggered by something when a harmless stimulus is
present, an
association may be made between the two things. This can cause a phobia.
E.g. a little girl is playing on the beach in shallow water. She catches her flip-flop on a stone,
trips, and
hurts herself. Her dad picks her up but she is wet and frightened.
When the girl gets home she is afraid of taking a bath because she has generalized her fear of
the sea
to a fear of all water.
6. Task 1: Complete the following flow chart
Before conditioning
NS (water) → ________________ UCS (_______________) →UCR _______________
During conditioning:
NS (water) + UCS _______________ → (UC_______________) _______________
After conditioning:
(_______________) → (CR) _______________
7. Watson and Raynor (1920)
Watson and Raynor (1920) conditioned Little Albert to be phobic of a white rat. Each time a white rat
was shown to Albert, a loud noise was made with a steal bar behind him. The noise frightened him
and he associated his fear with the rat.
Albert’s fear generalised to other white, fluffy things such as cotton wool and a Father Christmas
mask.
Conditioned responses often take many trials to learn but if the conditioned stimulus is repeated
many times without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response is lost. This is called
extinction.
However, extinction doesn’t happen very easily. Once a phobia has been learned, it is very hard to
lose. e.g. if a child gets bitten by a dog, they might become afraid of dogs. Even though dogs don’t
often bite and the child is never bitten again, it may be hard to overcome the fear.
Phobias are generally learned from one event – this is called ‘one-trial learning’. e.g. a person may
be afraid of driving after having one bad car accident.
8. 2) Social learning theory and
phobias
Key terminology:
Vicarious reinforcement Learning through the positive consequences of other people’s
actions rather
than first-hand – we are more likely to copy if they are rewarded.
Modelling Imitating the behaviour of someone.
9. SLT involves gaining new behaviours by watching n imitating a role model – same-sex role
models are
more likely to be imitated.
If the role model is rewarded then the observer is more likely to imitate them –
vicarious reinforcement.
o ATTENTION (IDENTIFICATION)
o MEMORY
o REPRODUCTION
o MOTIVATION = VICARIOUS REINFORCEMENT
10. Coombes et al 1980
Animals also learn from observing each other – e.g. Coombes et al 1980 let
two rats drink from a spout. One rat had been given an injection to make it sick so later both rats
avoided drinking from the spout. The rat which hadn’t been sick had learned not to drink from
the
spout because it had seen the other rat being sick. Learning to avoid something unpleasant is
similar
to learning a fear.
Social learning applies
11. Mineka et al (1984) found that their laboratory monkeys that had grown up in the wild were
afraid of snakes. The ones born in captivity were not afraid. The lab-born monkeys learned to be
afraid of snakes through watching the wild-born monkeys being afraid of snakes. This shows that
the fear of snakes can be through social learning.
When blackbirds see a predator they give a warning call. Curio (1988) showed that social
learning could explain how blackbirds could learn to give predator alarms to a non-predator.
12. 3) Phobias and preparedness
Key terminology:
Preparedness The tendency to learn some associations more easily, quickly and permanently
than others.
13. Seligman (1971)
Suggested we learn links more between some things more easily than others.
E.g. more likely to fear deep water than long grass as evolution seems to have prepared us to
learn about things that are threatening.
A prepoared stimulus is something that is threatening to humans in their early evolution.
14. According to the theory of evolution, if two animals were living in a forest and encountered a forest fire,
the one who ran away would be more likely to survive. This shows some behaviours are adaptive and being
fearful can be useful.
In this example, fear makes sense because fires are deadly. Sometimes we have irrational fears of
objects or situations that are not dangerous.
We learn links between some things more easily than others, as evolution has ‘prepared’ us to learn
about things that are threatening.
Many phobias are not random – people are afraid of thunder because being struck by lightning was a
real risk for early humans.
This explains why some phobias are more common than others. e.g. we are more likely to be scared of
snakes (could have been a predator) than clothes.
One-trial learning – learning to be afraid of something dangerous immediately will keep you alive.
15. Nature V Nurture
Evidence for the nature argument Evidence for the nurture argument
Preparedness – there is a genetic influence on the
kinds of things we learn to fear. Bennett-Levy and
Marteau showed that more people are afraid of
animals with certain characteristics.
Mineka et al (1984) found that monkeys learn
fears
through social learning. As monkeys and people
are
very similar, it is likely that we can learn fears too.
Slater and Shield (1969) found that identical twins
were more similar in their phobias than
nonidentical
twins.
Watson and Raynor (1920) used classical
conditioning to make Little Albert frightened of a
white rat. This shows the environment can
produce
phobias.
16. Bennett-Levy and Marteau (1984)
Aim:
To see whether we are more afraid of, or avoid, animals that:
Move quickly
Move suddenly
Look very different from people
17. Procedure:
Questionnaire 1 asked about fear of animals and how close the
person would get to them:
Fear scale: 1-3 (1= not afraid, 3= very afraid)
Nearness scale: 1-5 (1= enjoy picking it up, 5=
move further away than 2 metres)
18. Questionnaire 2 measured how the participants felt about each
animal. They rated each species on a three-point scale (1= not, 2=
quite, 3= very) for:
Ugliness
Sliminess
How speedy they were
How suddenly they moved
