Through the Looking Glass; a Logical Look at Spectrephobia

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Through the Looking Glass: A Logical Look at Spectrophobia Lilli Munoz PSY/211 May 9, 2013 Professor Gromoll Through the Looking Glass: A Logical Look at Spectrophobia The human brain is an amazing thing. It is always working; learning and processing. With technology the way it is now, people are in constant contact with each other and media. It is then easy to see how someone’s conscious and subconscious mind is taking in what is seen and heard, learning, and then arranging their behavior based on what they have learned. A phobia is the irrational and intense fear of an object, activity, or situation and the resulting avoidance of the object, activity, or situation. Sometimes the focus of the phobia is a completely ordinary object or experience; such as a mirror and seeing one’s own reflection. Spectrophobia is the intense fear of mirrors and seeing one’s own reflection as it applies to the supernatural. Perhaps those afflicted with spectrophobia are indeed suffering from paranormal experiences or perhaps this extreme fear is a learned behavior. Ivan Pavlov discovered what is now known as “classical conditioning”. “Classical conditioning deals with behaviors that are elicited automatically by some stimulus…the stimulus doesn’t produce a new behavior but rather causes an existing behavior to occur” (Hockenbury & Hockenbury, 2014, p. 186). In other words an ordinary object causes a reflexive response because of a learning experience. This can happen when the neutral stimulus is paired with another stimulus that causes the reflexive response. When paired several times eventually the neutral stimulus will produce the reflexive response on its own. If we consider the extent and influence of today’s media which promotes the horror genre in music, films, television and even clothes then it is not too far a leap to consider the media could be causing the

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