Classical Conditioning and Phobias

Classical conditioning  is a theory of pairing one stimulus with another neutral stimulus that causes changes in the response to the neutral stimulus (Goldstein). This type of theory was first developed around John Watson and his outlook on behaviorism where he argued that a person’s behavior can be studied without any reference to the mind. With saying this, Watson conducted an experiment with a little boy, Albert, and a rat. Every time the rat would go near Albert, someone made a loud noise which later on, made Albert crawl away from the rat every time it came near him. This reaction became a learned behavior for Albert and in turn, also made him scared of rats.

I was subjected to witnessing a horrific movie as a child, which now results in why I am deathly afraid of clowns. When I was four, my father made me sit down and watch the movie based off the book by Stephen King called “IT” which was about a clown that took the lives of children. Now being four years old, that isn’t something you expect out of a clown. Ever since then, I have been traumatized by anything related to clowns whether it be a picture, the big shoes, the make up, everything. I am 22 years old and still run and hide when I see one.

With saying this I feel like I can relate to the “Little Albert” experiment. When subjected to the movie, I now suffer from a phobia. When the rat used to crawl toward Albert after a couple trials of loud noises, Albert learned to crawl away because he knew that the noise was coming. To me it seems like in a way phobias can be learned through classical conditioning.

In conclusion, classical condition seems to be a good theory to use when to test for learning behavior, like Watson did. It also has its downfalls for example with the little Albert experiment I remember reading what happened to him later on in life and this experiment actually made him not only scared of little white rats, but other soft, cuddly animals that were also white. Classical conditioning is a very interesting theory used in the world of Psychology and I would love to focus more on this particular subject as the class goes.

Works Cited

Goldstein, Bruce. “Introduction to Cognitive Psychology.” Connecting Mind, Research and Everyday Experience. Third Edition. Belmont, CA 94002-3098: Woodsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. Page 10. Print.

6 thoughts on “Classical Conditioning and Phobias

  1. Chelsea Cherie Jacobs

    Wow! I never made the connection to phobias and classical conditioning. Job well done. I can definitely relate although my case is a little different.My dad was actually home early enough to watch the news one night so I sat to watch it with him. I was no older than 6. We live around the corner from Six Flags America and a ride had broken down while the passengers where stuck at the top for hours. After seeing that I told my dad I was never getting on a roller coaster. Leave it to him to take the family a few weeks later (he NEVER took us before and now all the sudden he could not wait). I was barely tall enough to ride the “big kid” rides and I really didn’t want to, especially after watching the news. My younger brother and mother went off to the baby rides and my dad took me with him. We got in line for the Batman but when we got to the front, they decided that because I barely made the height requirement that I shouldn’t get on. So instead of taking me to my mom, what does he do? He takes me to the Superman. Well they let me on that and it was the worst experience of my life.

    When we were at the top and I could see my mom and brother across the park. When it started going down I almost fell out and it was going so fast that I couldn’t sit down so I was standing the entire time, even with the lap belt because I was so tiny. Needless to say when that was over I was never getting on another roller coaster. And since that day I have been seriously afraid of heights. As a basketball player people think that is far from true because I’m suppose to jump a lot, but the one thing that my coaches always tell me is that I need to jump. I refuse, I’m that scared. I hate going down a hill in car because I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach.

    When I think of classical conditioning I think of Pavlov’s experiment with the dogs. In the experiment he was actually trying to measure digestion through the dogs salvation. He realized that the dogs would start to salivate when they saw the lab assistant come through the door or when they hear the bell that signaled it was time for the meat powder to be distributed.

    I often wonder if classical conditioning can be reversed. I remember talking about different ways to reverse it like flooding, but in my opinion none of these would work. I think they would only make matters worse.

  2. Stacy Lynn Clarke

    I can emphasize…I walked into my living room when I was 5 and watched the opening scene of IT. To this day, I am afraid of sheets on clotheslines, have been known to run away if I see a tipped-over red tricycle on the sidewalk (it’s hard living on a block full of kids sometimes), and hate clowns (but who doesn’t?). I’ve NEVER made the connection to classical conditioning before!

    I think it’s fascinating how phobias and conditioning can be linked. In my case, I KNOW why I am scared of these ridiculous things, but I’m afraid of them anyway – it doesn’t take the fright away. I think this is a great topic to delve into. What other seemingly insignificant moments can lead to a conditioned response? Are there triggers we unconsciously respond to?

    Simply Psychology includes food/alcohol and sickness that may follow (whether or not it was related), specific people and their favorite scents, and school connections (bullies, abusive teachers) as being possible classically conditioned phobias. However, they also point out that the relationship between cause and effect is, of course, complex, and needs looked into deeply – the behaviorist approach has been discredited in favor of looking at the relationship between nature and nurture. As psychology students, we must remember to base our theories on empirical data. We must take the individual’s level of free will into account. Conditioning and priming, along with their causes and effects, remains much more complicated than we think.

    Works Cited
    McLeod, S. A. (2008). Classical Conditioning. Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/classical-conditioning.html

  3. Khadija Salim

    As a student studying psychology and in pursuit of a graduate degree in clinical psychology, classical conditioning is a reoccurring theme presented. It is of great interest especially relating to anxiety disorders and phobias. Classical conditioning was discovered by accident by Ivan Pavlov in the twentieth century when he gave dog meat powder to a dog to make it salivate (Kring, Johnson, Davidson, and Neale 22). Throughout my studies and internships, I have seen first-hand how classical conditioning can create a small effect as well as a debilitating disorder.

    A client was seeking therapy for a few different issues and one that was not presented initially but observed, was the client’s fear of blue cups. The client had informed us that when she was younger she was eating, as well drinking out of a blue cup and began to choke on her meal. Although medically she was fine and deemed physically okay within moments, her fear of blue cups would follow her years later. The neutral stimulus of a blue cup would now be associated with choking which allowed her to develop a phobia, and begin to panic and manifest anxiety when seeing blue cups. The client realistically would be able to avoid blue cups throughout her lifetime if she did not want to address the issue as there are millions of other options to drink out of, but other phobias are not as easy to handle.

    A different client had entered and was seeking therapy for anxiety related to a recent car accident. Due to getting into a car accident, the client was unable to drive without paralyzing fear and would avoid the area of the highway in which the accident occurred. The sight of the car (although it was repaired and looked brand new) gave her intense fear and she was unable to presume to normal life activities due to her inability to drive. The neutral stimulus of the car when met with the car accident conditioned her fear of driving. Knowing that she could not avoid driving, the client had to go through exposure and systematic desensitization therapy to unlearn the conditioning and overcome her phobia.

    Classical conditioning can be extremely detrimental to our lives in relation to anxiety and phobias which can drastically effect quality of life. It is a blessing to have research done and continuous therapeutic techniques implemented to aid in reversing phobias created in our lives.

    Works Cited

    Kring, Ann M., Sheri L. Johnson, Gerald C. Davison, and John M. Neale.Abnormal Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.

  4. Erika Rashelle Arredondo

    It is quite unsettling to learn the details involved in the research experiments pre existing our current APA code of ethics. The Little Albert experiment along with other experiments such as The Monster Experiment which involved orphans being emotionally abused as part of the experiment, and The Monkey Drug Trials of 1969 where animals were treated unethically in order to observe the effects of drug use and addiction, serve as good examples for the necessity of laws and also the need for transparency within research.

    While reports have been made by researchers stating that Little Albert, né William Barger, was unaware of his experiences as a test subject and showed no phobias later in his life resulting from the earlier experiments, what was done to him was still unacceptable by the current standards of the APA. [1] By today’s standards, Albert would have been too young to qualify as a research participant. Other ethical issues with the experiment were that any form of desensitization treatment to counteract the effects of the experiment were never administered to Albert since the trial ended before that could happen. [2]

    It was also previously believed that Albert’s mother had not been informed and /or did not consent for her son to be used in the experiment. While this belief has now been reported as false, Albert’s mother was in no position to give consent as she was employed as a wet nurse at the hospital where the experiment took place. It can be deduced that the mother agreed to allow her son to take part in the experiment out of fear of the repercussions should she decline the offer. As someone who both worked for the hospital which Watson also worked at and who also suffered from a low socio-economic status, Albert’s mother, like her son, was very much a victim and should not have been solicited to give parental “consent” . [3]

    Works Cited

    “Whatever happened to Little Albert?”. Edmonton, Alberta: MacEwan University News. June 2, 2014. Retrieved October 09, 2014

    American Psychology Association; 2010. Retrieved October 09, 2014.

    Bartlett, T. (June 2, 2014). “The Search for Psychology’s Lost Boy: In 2009 the Decades-old Mystery of ‘Little Albert’ was Finally Solved… Or Was It?”. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved October 09, 2014.

  5. Kristina Cafney Paradise

    The topic of conditioning always interested me. It is one of those topics that you can just do so much with especially in terms of learning and in programming young minds. The idea of a phobia being linked to conditioning is something I have thought a lot about in the past.
    I am terrified of heights. I was not always, I became terrified of heights because I fell out of a tree. My daughter who is five now is terrified of bees, because she was stung. However, she is now terrified of her swing set because she can hear a bee inside of it. The sound of the bee buzzing triggers her to her fear of bees and therefore she is now terrified of the swings.
    Your fear of clowns is a common one, the same thing happened to my cousin when she was about four. She watched the movie IT and is now terrified of clowns. However, I feel you can also condition in the opposite way. If you have a phobia based off classical conditioning, do the opposite. De-conditioning is not something you have to go to a therapist for, although some do, most can do it on their own. My daughter is afraid of bees to the point she would run in the house or not go outside if there was a bee. However, I have been showing her honey bees, I got her a book on honey bees and explained all the wonderful things they do. She also knows they will not sting. She will go outside now and if she sees a bee, she may jump or become a little startled but she does not freak out like she used to. She is on her way to being de-conditioned.
    So although phobias may be conditioned in your mind, you can also de-condition those phobias from your mind.

  6. Natasha Cocchiarella (nac5348)

    Great post, this as an awesome relationship that I have yet to see paired together in such a way. I can’t remember ever linking classical conditioning and phobias together, even though that is the exact outcome of the Albert experiment. It makes a lot of sense why people develop phobias from experiences, but I don’t think we can say that every experience is considered an example of classical conditioning. Albert was exposed to this through repeated trials and studies, it wasn’t a one time exposure. Seeing the movie IT for you was a one time experience, not something you were conditioned to then develop a fear. I completely understand where you are getting your concept for a connection between the two but I think the part we would need to look at more is the repetition versus a one time exposure to something creating a phobia and if that can be considered classical conditioning.

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