Classical Conditioning and Acquisition of Phobias

Author: Ushna Nawaz

         Classical conditioning is the way of learning in which two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response. In this process an unconditioned stimulus is associated with a neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus) thus the response produced is called a conditioned response. Although, various decent behaviors can be learned through classical conditioning people can also learn unwanted behavior such as phobias. Phobia is defined as an extreme unreasonable fear of a particular object or situation. 

An illustrative relationship exists between classical conditioning and phobia that can be explained with John B. Watson’s experiment. In this experiment the participant was 9 months old little Albert who was exposed to different stimuli (burning newspaper, a white rat, rabbit, monkey, and a mask) and his response towards these stimuli was recorded, at first little Albert didn’t show any fear of any of the stimuli presented to him. After that Watson linked white rat and aversive stimulus (loud noise); whenever the little Albert was exposed to white rat loud noise was also produced in the background and naturally, the baby began to cry after hearing the loud noise; after repetitively presenting the white rat with a loud noise the little Albert eventually started to cry after seeing the white rat. Later on, it was concluded that the baby developed a fear for white rat and other white things; whenever a white rat was presented to him he instantly began to cry and tend to move away from it with full energy. 

           In 1981, Wolpe conducted a retrospective survey which also approves the fact that phobias can be developed through cognitive conditioning. In this study, it was stated that one-third of fears were cognitive-based and two-third due to autonomic conditioning. Another study was conducted by Merckelbach, de Jong, Muris, & van Den Hout, (1996) to study the etiology of specific phobias and it was revealed that phobias become chronic due to classical conditioning.  

In the same way, people link aversive experiences with some particular object or situation that results in developing phobia, the following examples can be taken to understand this relationship. 

Social Phobia

If someone went on a wedding and there he faced humiliation might possible the individual make a connection between humiliation and social situations then he is more likely to develop social phobia. 

Haemophobia

If a person is having haemophobia (fear of blood) there are many chances that he dislikes blood smell or has seen some traumatic situation like murder.

Acrophobia

Acrophobia (fear of height) may result from some bad experience or watching someone dying due to falling.  

Nyctophobia

Nyctophobia (fear of the dark) usually develop from watching horror movies, an individual told me that he stopped going outside at night or in dark because she watched a serial in which ghosts show up during this time and another person told me that he fears from dark because he saw a movie in which a murder happen in dark.

Somniphobia

Somniphobia (fear of sleep) a person told me that he won’t go to sleep because of repetitive nightmares he saw during sleep.

In the above-mentioned examples, conditioning exists between two stimuli which also approves that classical conditioning can also lead towards the acquisition of phobias. Moreover, catastrophic thinking also plays a crucial role in the acquirement of phobias.