Phobias: Habituation, Classical Conditioning And Operant Conditioning

All humans are born with the ability to learn and they use this ability every single day. This ability is of great importance in our everyday lives. Martin, Carlson and Buskist (2010) deal with three different ways in which humans learn: habituation, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Although all three of these can be associated with phobias, classical conditioning can be perhaps the strongest in terms of developing ‘‘unreasonable fears of specific objects or situations’’ (Martin et al., 2010, p. 262) or in other words, phobias. Phobias can also be treated or reconditioned. There are many ways through which this may be achieved, one of which is systematic desensitisation. As with phobias, systematic desensitisation also uses
These include acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery and generalisation. For classical conditioning to take place, it is necessary to have many pairings of the unconditional stimulus (UCS) and the conditional stimulus (CS). The phase when this connection is made and grows stronger is known as acquisition. An example of this can perhaps be seen with spiders. If bitten by a poisonous spider it is certain to elicit feelings of pain and fear. Many spiders on the other hand are completely harmless but because of the association made between the spiders bite and the feelings of pain and fear people may grow to fear even common daddy-long legs. This is an example of classical conditioning. The bite is known as the UCS and the pain it elicits is the unconditional response (UCR). The spider is a neutral stimulus (NS) but through association it becomes paired with the UCS and it then becomes the conditioned stimulus (CS) which can now elicit the same feelings of fear as the UCS did, known as the conditional response (CR). Stimuli that bear a resemblance to the CS may also begin to elicit the CR through association. This is known as generalisation. However, although the conditioned response to the stimulus is still present the response elicited is not as strong as with the original, conditioned
Systematic desensitisation involves graded exposure to the feared stimulus in either a real or imaginary situation, where extinction is encouraged to occur. Here a patient is made to habituate a fear response over time through either imagining it or through exposure to the feared stimulus. The main idea behind systematic desensitisation is that a fear response is replaced by a neutral response such as deep relaxation. This is known as counter-conditioning and involves the elimination of a fear response to a certain stimulus in favour of a different, more rational response (Eysenck, 2004). When using the treatment method of systematic desensitisation patients are first taught how to relax completely and successfully. They are then made to imagine a situation involving their specific phobia (e.g. spiders), beginning with the least threatening thought and continuing until it elicits a fear response. For example they could first imagine that the spider is in the next room. Then they could move on to that it is on the other side of the room they are in. Eventually they work their way up to imagining that the spider is perhaps on their hand. If and any time they begin to grow fearful they are then made to then return to a state of deep relaxation and when they are completely relaxed they must begin again with the least threatening thought. They must be able to go through all