Psych Part 1 Ch 5

Describe the biological cause of anxiety disorders.

People with variations of particular genes are more prone to develop fear responses and to have greater difficulty overcoming them. People with a variation of a particular gene who are exposed to fearful stimuli show greater activation of the amygdala. The amygdala produces fear responses to triggering stimuli without conscious thought. For people with anxiety disorders the amygdala may become overly excitable. There is also the belief in biological predisposition to acquire fears of certain types of objects or situations called prepared conditioning, which suggested that ancestors who were genetically predisposed to develop fears of potentially threatening objects were favored by evolution.

Define phobia, including three symptoms. Describe two of them.

Phobia is an anxiety disorder characterized by excessive, irrational fear of an object, situation, or activity with avoidance. Symptoms include sweating, trembling, shaking, fear of death, dry mouth. One common phobia is acrophobia which is the fear of heights and another fear is agoraphobia which is the fear of going out alone in open, crowded places. People with agoraphobia may fear shopping in crowded stores, walking through crowded streets, crossing a bridge, public transport, or even leaving the house. They develop a fear of places and situations from which it might be difficult or embarrassing to escape in the event of panicky symptoms or a full fledged panic attack or of situations in which help may be unavailable if such problems should occur.

Describe the three categories of symptoms of anxiety.

Physical features: jumpiness, jitteriness, trembling, or shaking, tightness in the pit of the stomach or chest, heavy perspiration, sweaty palms, light- headedness or faintness, dryness in the mouth or throat, shortness of breath, heart pounding or racing, cold fingers or limbs, and upset stomach or nausea, fight or flight. Behavioral features: avoidance behavior, clinging or dependent behavior, agitated behavior. Cognitive features: worry, nagging sense of dread or apprehension about the future, preoccupation with or keen awareness of bodily sensations, fear of losing control, thinking the same disturbing thoughts over and over, jumbled or confused thoughts, difficulty concentrating or focusing one's thoughts, and thinking things are getting out of hand.

Describe three symptoms of a panic attack.

Symptoms include the urge to escape, fear of losing control, pounding heart, rapid respiration, shortness of breath, or difficulty breathing, heavy perspiration, and weakness or dizziness. Symptoms can mimic symptoms of heart attacks or allegoric reactions.

Use a specific example to explain how a phobia is caused, using the four classical conditioning terms, how it is maintained, using the operant conditioning term and how it can be cured, using classical conditioning terms.

The fear component is acquired through classical conditioning. For example, a child goes to a hospital to visit a relative who dies while the child visits and the child cries. The unconditioned stimulus is death and the unconditioned response is crying. Then every time after the child goes to a hospital someone close to him dies, resulting in a fear of hospitals. The conditioned stimulus is hospitals and the conditioned reaction becomes crying since the child has the same response to the unconditioned and conditioned stimulus. Phobias can be maintained through operant conditioning. Negative reinforcement helps to maintain phobias because relief from anxiety negatively reinforces the avoidance of fearful stimuli, which thus strengthens the avoidance response. As an adult, the person has maintained their phobia by avoiding hospitals at all costs and lessening his anxiety by only going to small clinics. The phobia can be cured by classical conditioning through extinction. Extinction works by having the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus. For example the person who has a phobia of hospitals can be taken to a hospital to visit and friend and see that friend come out healthy and alive.