Studies on Phobias and Addictions

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Phobias and Addictions Michele Bucceri PSY/300 General Psychology May 30, 2011 Karin Detweiler Phobias and Addictions Phobias can be developed through classical conditioning since classical conditioning is a learned behavior. Like the experiment that Watson and Rayner (1920) did to “Little Albert” with the white rats. “Little Albert” liked the white rats and even played them until Watson and Rayner banged on a steel bar behind his head whenever he reached for one of those white rats, teaching him fear which is a taught phobia. After a while all “Little Albert” needed to do is see a white rat, he started to get scared and started to cry. Studies since Watson and Rayner’s time have proposed classical conditioning as an explanation for the same human phobias (Ost, 1991; Wolpe, 1958). Needles are another good example. Adults know that they need injections, but sometimes the phobia is so strong that he or she may pass out simply just by the sight of a needle before it is even injected into him or her. Children often pick this phobia up from their parent’s reaction whenever a needle is present. Phobias can be from a situation or a certain object that one is afraid of. If someone is driving down the road and a deer jumps out in front of the car and does a large amount of damage to the car chances are that he or she will avoid traveling down that same road again because of the phobia of a deer being on the side of the road. It could also be something like a person being afraid of big dogs. If a child got bit by a big dog chances are that once he or she grow up they will have a phobia of big dogs and get extremely scared when a dog comes around him or her. Controlled studies in nonhumans and in humans, in the laboratory and in the clinic, have provided compelling evidence that drug addiction can be viewed as operant behavior and effectively treated through the
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