Phobias Research Papers

Phobias are the most prominent mental illnesses found among children and adolescents, and often continue into adulthood. Five to twelve percent of Americans will experience a phobia in their lifetime, and most cases go untreated. While they are treatable, Phobias are considerably the most difficult form of anxiety to cure. The presence of a phobia induces intense fear, and leads to prolonged anxiety. They are typically more prominent among children, and commonly appear in the form of a "specific phobia".
Specific phobias are phobias which are triggered by objects or situations. Many adolescents experience a phobia of flying, heights, or getting shots, which makes specific phobias the most likely to occur. While specific phobias are most common,
When a child sees an adult react negatively to a stimulus, this may begin the development of a phobia. Vicarious learning also relates to direct conditioning as the child learns by observation which objects or environments they should fear, or may feel comfortable in. Not every child develops a phobia from fear, and conditioning could be the main factor in deterring this. "Children who receive nonthreatening information about a stimulus would be predicted to create neutral or positive learning expectancies, and these should protect them from developing a fear response during a vicarious fear learning event involving the stimulus" (anxiety 1, p2). When children are not conditioned to fear something in particular, they are much less likely to develop a phobia.
Traumatic events also prove to be a factor in developing phobias. Studies show that women are more likely to develop a phobia based on traumatic event, but it is also shown that men seek counseling more often. Social phobias are based differently due to their background concerning heredity. It was found that social phobias seem to be based more on heredity than any other classification of phobia, so social phobias are equally prevalent among men and