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|Study |Description (focus aims and findings) |Conclusion and implications |Evaluation |

|Watson and Rayner (1920) |Attempt to show that an 11 mth old can be conditioned |Support for classical conditioning theory |Unethical, findings have not been replicated; reliability |

|Little Albert |to have a fear of a rat; boy quickly conditioned; fear | |questionable. |

| |generalised to similar stimuli | |May only explain behaviour in babies - may be more |

| | | |reactive. |

|Barlow and Durand (1995) |50% of those driving phobia reported recall of a |Some support for CC as explanation for acquisition but |Maybe the other 50% could be accounted for information |

| |traumatic experience whilst driving |what about the 50% who had no recall? |transmission or social learning theory |

|Munjack (1984) |Supports Barlow and Durand - 50% with driving phobia |Some support for CC but how do you explain why people with|Maybe some develop phobias and some don’t based on |

| |recall a traumatic driving experience but also 50% of a|same experiences have different behavioural outcomes; CC |differential reinforcement histories; also maybe need to |

| |non-phobic control group had also had traumatic car |is not a full explanation on its own |combine with ANS reactivity (biological theory) which |

| |accidents and no driving phobia | |suggests some people may be more predisposed to learn in |

| | | |traumatic situations |

|Menzies and Clark (1993) |Only 2% with water phobia had had a traumatic |Some phobias seem hard to explain using CC theory |Maybe some natural environment type phobias such as the |

| |experience with water | |dark, heights and water are better described by prepotency|

| | | |argument of evolutionary theory |

| | | |Maybe they just couldn’t remember the trauma as it has |

| | | |been repressed (Psychodynamic explanation) |

|Di Nardo et al (1998) |Supports Munjack (1984) 50% of dog phobics had |CC cannot explain 50% without phobias or the many who did |Repression? |

| |experienced a frightening event with a dog but many |not develop phobia | |

| |normal controls had also had frightening events but not| | |

| |developed dog phobia. | | |

|Implication of Behaviourist theory |Evidence for |Evidence against |

|Phobias should be traceable to an original learning experience |Barlow and Durand: driving phobics who could recall traumatic |People who did not develop dog (Di Nardo) and driving phobias |

| |experiences, further supported by Munjack (1984) same findings |(Munjack) despite frightening experiences, 98% who had no trauma |

| | |involving water but had a water phobia (Menzies and Clarke) |

| | | |

|People who have had same learning experience are likely to have same | |Many have had trauma involving dogs and driving and not gone onto |

|outcome (phobia) | |develop phobias (Di Nardo and Munjack) |

| | | |

|If phobias are learnt through association of frightening experiences |Good as explains some of the really bizarre specific phobias such as |Does not explain why some phobias are so much more common than |

|with objects which were present at the time, this means you could |buttons, baked beans and colours |others, especially for things that we would rarely experience in this|

|have a phobia of virtually anything | |country such as snakes. |

|Should be possible to condition and decondition phobias artificially |Behavioural treatments such as systematic desensitization and |Social and agoraphobias are more resistant to change. |

| |flooding have an excellent success rate for removing phobic responses| |

| |to specific phobias | |

| | | |

| |This goes against CC principle that learning that takes place after | |

| |one trial only should be extremely resistant to attempts to | |

| |decondition. | |

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Learning theory explanation of phobias: Evaluation

Alternative Social Learning Theory account:

Modelling a fear response and Information transmission

Mineka et al (1984)

AO2 Commentary

How useful is this theory for explaining all phobias in humans?

Merckelbach et al (1996)

Needles:

Small animals:

Agoraphobia:

Claustrophobia:

Supported by Ost (1985)

Information transmission

Evolutionary explanation of Phobias:

Preparedness (Seligman)

Cook and Mineka (1989)

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