Fears Vs. Phobias, And When Does A Fear Become A Phobia

The Little Albert experiment has become a widely known case study that is continuously discussed by a large number of psychology professionals. In 1920, behaviorist John Watson and his assistant Rosalie Rayner began to conduct one of the first experiments done with a child. Stability played a major factor in choosing Albert for this case study, as Watson wanted to ensure that they would do as little harm as possible during the experiment. Watson’s method of choice for this experiment was to use principles of classic conditioning to create a stimulus in children that would result in fear. Since Watson wanted to condition Albert, a variety of objects were used that would otherwise not scare him. These objects included a white rat, blocks, a

Known as a mental disorder a phobia is a persistent fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to compelling desire to avoid it. Phobias tend to affect the way people live their lives, for example, their working and social environments, considering that they last for a very long time and are capable to cause intense psychological physical stress. It is considered today the most common mental and anxiety disorder in the United States (Matig Mavissakalian & David H. Barlow 1981 pp 2). There are many phobias such as: the fear of aging, fear of changing, fear of clowns, fear of getting fat, fear of being in closed spaces, etc.

aggression) can be acquired by observation and imitation. The experiment consisted of children from the age’s three to six being split and put into three separate rooms with a bunch of toys and an adult, in which they observed how the adults interacted/played with the toys. In one room, the children witnessed the adult acting aggressively towards a toy called the bobo doll. When it was time for the children to individually go back in the room to play, the majority of the children reciprocated what they saw the adults doing. Another set of children were placed in a room and observed to a non-aggressive model (adult) where the model played with everything but the Bobo doll. When the children were placed in the room, the majority of them acted in the same manner as the adult previously in the room. Lastly, another set of children were put into a room without any sort of model; they played accordingly without any influence. In relation to my survey, six out of ten people stated how they have witnessed a bad experience happen to someone and later took on that phobia. In conclusion, I believe the Bobo experiment supports my hypothesis of how phobias can be inherited by influence instead of by

Watson tested Albert with a white rat, a white rabbit, a monkey, a variety of mask, and burning newspaper. This was the neutral stimulus because he showed no fear when presented with these objects. Then he was placed on a mattress with a rat. When he would touch the rat Watson would hit a piece of steel with a hammer. This was the unconditional stimulus. Albert would roll over and cry, now in fear of the rat. He would later be placed on the mattress with a rat again, and would try to crawl away as fast as possible. The rat was considered a

Pamela Kulbarsh (2014) once wrote in her article titled Phobic Disorders: What Do You Fear? that “to be defined as a phobia, the fear must cause some level of physical or psychological impairment. […] Phobia is a fear gone awry. A phobia twists the normal fear response into something that is difficult, if not, impossible to control.” There are many different types of phobias; however, there are four ways in which a phobia can be categorized. The four different categories that a fear can be classified are as follows: animal, environment, situational, and injection/injury. A phobia involving an animal means a person has an intense fear of any particular animal whether it be a dog or a spider. The next type of phobia is an environmental phobia

A phobia is a persistent and unreasonable fear of an object or situation which can initiate an anxiety response such as a panic attack or crying and freezing in children – the response is out of proportion to the threat posed. The sufferer is aware that their fear is unreasonable, causing distress, but also distinguishing the disorder from schizophrenia and psychosis. The anxiety response includes dizziness and difficulty breathing and is maladaptive as avoidance or distress in response to the feared situation or object interferes considerably with the individual’s daily routine. For those under 18, symptoms have to be present for at least 6 months and cannot be better explained by the criteria of another

The learner was taken into a room where they would be connected to different types of electric fittings while strapped into a chair. While the teacher would observe what was going on. During the training session the teacher had to give the learner word groups and if the learner got them incorrect the teacher would shock the learner. The objective of the shock was to see if the learner would learn better if they knew that there would be repercussion if they got the word group incorrect. Each time that the learner got a group of words incorrect, the teacher would increase the amount of volts that the learner would get shocked with. Milgram had the teacher to increase the volts until the learner scream stop, however the teacher was instructed to continue until the volts reached an amount that was to the limit it could kill the learner. Before the learner entered the session it was stated that the learner had a heart condition and that the experiment should not exceed the amounts of volts that would be harmful enough to cause damage. As the volts increased the learner expressed he wanted to stop and the teacher was instructed to continue, the teacher continued until maximum volts were applied to the learner an the learner complained about his heart issue at this point the learner fell without movement and that when the teacher was informed that he was

Almost everyone has fears. It can be as simple as a fear of spiders or as complex as a fear of being in a car accident. However, whenever that fear combines with anxiety and a few other factors, it is actually a phobia.

Transient fears for certain objects or situations are common. However when fear is extreme and disproportionate to the threat posed by specific stimuli that is avoided or endured under duress, it is characterised as a specific phobia (APA, 2013). The common types of specific phobia are animal, e.g., dogs, spiders; natural environment, e.g., water, heights; blood, injection or injury (BII), e.g., dental phobia, medical procedures; situational, e.g., elevators, flying; and other miscellaneous phobias such as clowns, fear of choking. While debilitating, specific phobias are the most treatable of psychiatric disorders, however many people do not seek treatment because of their fear of being confronted with the feared stimuli (Wolitzky-Taylor, Horowitz, Powers & Telch, 2008).

Albert was seen as a normal child who was stolid (not easily stirred) and unemotional. No one had ever seen Albert in a fit of rage before this experience and it is noted that he practically never cried. The researchers wanted to find the answers to four questions through this experiment. The questions are as follows. 1.

The Little Albert Experiment was one of the most influential experiments conducted by the father of behaviorism John B. Waston and his student Rosalie Rayner in 1920. Previously, Russian Psychologist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning in his experiments with the dog. Based on the works of Pavlov, Dr. Waston extended the principle and first applied on human in his experiment with an 9-month-old infant, named Albert. At the beginning, little Albert showed no natural fear of furry objects when Dr. Waston introduced him fire, a monkey, a dog, a rabbit, and a white rat. Then, Dr. Watson made a loud noise by striking a metal bar with a hammer, every time

In general, a phobia refers to “extreme [and] irrational fear reactions” (Powell, Honey, & Symbaluk, 2013, p. 190). Phobias are developed through a process called classical conditioning. Classical conditioning involves “a process in which one stimulus that does not elicit a certain response is associated with a second stimulus that does; as a result, the first stimulus also comes to elicit a response” (Powell et al., 2013, pp. 109-110).

A phobia is an intense fear of something that has little or no actual danger. In general, most of the phobias develop in childhood but they can also develop in adulthood.

Phobias are what people are afraid of and there are different kinds of phobias and even different sizes. People are scared of many different things. For you a small little spider is nothing but, to someone with arachnophobia it’s a big really big deal. The most common mental disorder in the United States are phobias. Phobias have a serious impact on a person’s life. There are very very very common in fact 10% of people have a phobia to something; that’s over 10 million people suffering from phobias. Phobias are in the same class as post-traumatic stress disorder and panic disorders. (Winerman, 2005)

Studies show that about 3.5% of the world’s population suffers from arachnophobia, the fear of spiders. However, did you know that there are 40,000 different spider species and only 12 of them are able to cause severe harm to humans. Most are not capable of penetrating human skin with a bite and the ones that can show no more effect than a bee sting or a mosquito bite. Another common phobia is aerophobia, or the fear of flying, which affects 2.6% of the world’s populations. If flying sounds scary, an average of 3,500 people die in a car crash everyday. Also, you are more likely to become a professional athlete then be involved in a plane crash.