Phobias

Type of psychology: Psychopathology
Field of study: Anxiety disorders
Phobias are exaggerated, unjustified fears of everyday objects or situations, such as
fear of certain types of animals or fears of doing things in front of other people. Though
many people experience irrational fears or phobias, few seek treatment; as a result, they
suffer emotional pain and may find their lives limited by their phobias.
Key concepts
• conditioned response (CR)
• conditioned stimulus (CS)
• instrumental conditioning
• Pavlovian conditioning
• unconditioned response (UR)
• unconditioned stimulus (US)

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder characterized by a persistent, exaggerated,
irrational fear of certain objects or situations and by efforts to avoid
the object or situation. In many cases, the distress and the avoidance efforts
significantly interfere with an individual’s daily life. Phobias are common in
the general population; approximately one person in ten suffers from mild
phobias, and severe, disabling phobias are found in one person in five hundred.
The three major types of phobias are agoraphobia (a fear of situations in
which escape is perceived to be difficult or assistance unavailable), social
phobias, and specific (or “simple”) phobias. In social phobias, being observed
by others may elicit anxiety and the desire to avoid such situations.
The person fears doing something which will lead to embarrassment or humiliation,
such as being unable to speak or showing nervousness through
trembling hands or other signs. Persons with specific phobias avoid a certain
type of object or situation or suffer extreme anxiety when in the presence of
these objects or situations. Some examples of common specific phobias are
acrophobia, fear of heights; arachnophobia, fear of spiders; claustrophobia,
fear of being in small, enclosed spaces; pathophobia, fear of diseases and
germs; and xenophobia, fear of strangers.

In the presence of the feared object or situation, the severely phobic person’s
experience and reaction differ dramatically from the average person’s.
Physiologically, changes in the body cause an increase in heart rate and
blood pressure, tensing of muscles, and feelings of fear. In many cases, a
panic state develops, characterized by muscular trembling and shaking,
rapid, shallow breathing, and feelings of unbearable anxiety and dizziness.
Behaviorally, the person will stop or redirect whatever activity in which he or
she is engaged, then try to escape from or avoid the phobic object or situation.
Cognitively, a phobic person at a distance from the object or situation
can recognize it as posing little actual danger; but upon approaching it, fear
rises, and the estimation of risk increases.