AQA A Level Psychology复习笔记4.2.1 Characteristics of Phobias

• Phobias are an irrational fear of an object, place or situation that causes a constant avoidance of said object, place or situation.
• All phobias are characterised by the excessive fear and anxiety caused by the object, place or situation
• The DSM-5 recognised the following categories of phobias:
  • Specific phobia: Phobia of a specific object or situation, E.g. A needle or spider, or, flying
  • Social phobia (Social anxiety): Phobia of social situations, E.g. Public speaking
  • Agoraphobia: Phobia of being outside

Symptoms of phobias can be characterised by three areas:

Behavioural characteristics

• Panic: A person with a phobia may panic in response to the phobia stimulus, this could result in displaying the following behaviours; crying, screaming and/or running away
• Avoidance: A person with a phobia will avoid the phobic stimulus, which can make daily life complicated, E.g. if a person has a fear of going outside, they are unable to function in their day-to-day life
• Endurance: The opposite behaviour to avoidance, where the individual chooses to remain in the presence of the phobia, but continues to suffer and experience high levels of anxiety

Emotional characteristics

• Emotional responses: being unreasonable and irrational, the emotional response felt by the sufferer is disproportionate to the danger they are facing
• Anxiety: A person with a phobia will suffer from anxiety, which is an unpleasant state of high arousal and this state stops the person from being able to relax or feel any other emotion
• Fear: The person's immediate emotion when coming into contact with the phobia is fear

Cognitive characteristics

• Selective attention to the source of the phobia; often when the person is near the phobia, they cannot focus on anything else
• Usually keeping your attention on something dangerous gives you a higher chance of survival, this is not so, when the fear is irrational, such as with a phobia
• Cognitive distortions, the person's perception of the phobia can often be distorted, E.g. Someone who has a phobia of spiders can see the spider as aggressive and angry looking and may even feel that the spider is running toward them as if to attack