Phobias and preparedness: replication and extension

Silva, P. de

doi:10.1016/0005-7967(88)90036-8

Cited by 35 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Ratings of 5 were given to objects or situations that were probably dangerous to pretechnological man under most circumstances, and ratings of 1 were given to objects or situations that were unlikely to have ever been dangerous to pretechnological man. Three studies conducted in this manner reported that the content of most clinical phobias was rated in the 4 or 5 range (i.e., de Silva, Rachman, & Seligman, 1977, who had 69 cases in London; de Silva, 1988, who had 88 cases in Sri Lanka; and Zafiropoulou & McPherson, 1986, who had 49 cases in Scotland). Somewhat different conclusions were reached by Merckelbach, van den Hout, Jansen, and van der Molen (1988), who used a different methodology.…”

Section: Effective Stimuli For Activating and Learning To Activate Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.

Öhman

Mineka²

2001

Psychological Review

2,659

184

2,148

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An evolved module for fear elicitation and fear learning with 4 characteristics is proposed. (a) The fear module is preferentially activated in aversive contexts by stimuli that are fear relevant in an evolutionary perspective. (b) Its activation to such stimuli is automatic. (c) It is relatively impenetrable to cognitive control. (d) It originates in a dedicated neural circuitry, centered on the amygdala. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed from conditioning studies, both in humans and in monkeys; illusory correlation studies; studies using unreportable stimuli; and studies from animal neuroscience. The fear module is assumed to mediate an emotional level of fear learning that is relatively independent and dissociable from cognitive learning of stimulus relationships.

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Section: Effective Stimuli For Activating and Learning To Activate Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.

Öhman

Mineka²

2001

Psychological Review

2,659

184

2,148

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“…Prepared stimuli such as the snakes and spiders we used here are thought to draw on basic evolutionarily conserved mechanisms (Seligman 1971;Mineka and Ohman 2002). They elicit preferential attention and enhanced learning early in development in human infants (LoBue and DeLoache 2010) and primates (Cook and Mineka 1989;Kalin et al 2001;Murray and Izquierdo 2007), and the specific phobia rate for such stimuli is elevated relative to nonprepared stimuli (de Silva et al 1977;de Silva 1988;Fredrikson et al 1996). Consistent with these population-based findings, experimental work has shown that prepared stimuli elicit increased arousal and preferential attention relative to neutral stimuli (for review, see Ohman and Mineka (2001)).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Prepared stimuli enhance aversive learning without weakening the impact of verbal instructions

Atlas

Phelps

2018

Learn. Mem.

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Fear-relevant stimuli such as snakes and spiders are thought to capture attention due to evolutionary significance. Classical conditioning experiments indicate that these stimuli accelerate learning, while instructed extinction experiments suggest they may be less responsive to instructions. We manipulated stimulus type during instructed aversive reversal learning and used quantitative modeling to simultaneously test both hypotheses. Skin conductance reversed immediately upon instruction in both groups. However, fear-relevant stimuli enhanced dynamic learning, as measured by higher learning rates in participants conditioned with images of snakes and spiders. Results are consistent with findings that dissociable neural pathways underlie feedback-driven and instructed aversive learning.[Supplemental material is available for this article.]Human emotion and behavior is influenced by evolutionarily adapted mechanisms that are conserved across organisms. However, humans also learn directly from language and rule-based knowledge. A growing body of research aims to dissociate conserved, biologically prepared processes from those that are sensitive to higher-order influences, such as verbal instruction. The goal of the present study was to test formally how biological preparedness influences aversive learning and its modulation by instructions.Fear-relevant stimuli such as snakes and spiders are thought to engage biologically prepared mechanisms that shape responses and behavior (Seligman 1971;Mineka and Ohman 2002). The extant literature on fear conditioning suggests two main ways in which preparedness can impact conditioning. First, fear-relevant stimuli enhance fear acquisition and retention. Relative to fearirrelevant stimuli (e.g., flowers, mushrooms), fear-relevant stimuli have been shown to facilitate classical conditioning (Ho and Lipp 2014) and slow extinction learning (Fredrikson et al. 1976; Ohman et al. 1975a,b). Work in nonhuman primates suggests that innate responses to fear-relevant stimuli are mediated by the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (Meunier et al. 1999;Kalin et al. 2001;Murray and Izquierdo 2007). These structures play crucial roles in fear acquisition (Davis 1992; Maren 2001), extinction (Schiller andDelgado 2010;Milad and Quirk 2012), and value-based learning (Schoenbaum et al. 1998;Holland and Gallagher 2004), and thus their preferential recruitment by prepared stimuli might enhance dynamic aversive learning.Second, a distinct literature indicates that fear-relevant stimuli may be less responsive to instructions about safety. Studies of instructed extinction (Hugdahl and Ohman 1977;Hugdahl 1978) indicate that when individuals are informed that shocks will no longer be delivered following standard Pavlovian conditioning, conditioned responses are abolished immediately in people exposed to neutral stimuli, whereas conditioned responses remain elevated in those conditioned with biologically prepared stimuli. A dominant interpretation of these findings is that fearrelevant stimuli preferentia...

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“…Although some investigators reported that specific fears (e.g., fear of loud noises, fear of bees and wasps) made up the majority of fears among clinical subjects (De Silva, 1988;De Silva, Rachman, & Seligman, 1977;Zafiropoulon & McPherson, 1986), others could not replicate these findings (Merckelbach, Van den Hout, Hoekstra, & Van Oppen, 1988). Further, it is difficult to accept Öhman, Dimberg and Öst's (1985) proposal that agoraphobia can be seen as a prepared phobia of open spaces, which increase the vulnerability to predators.…”

Section: Preparedness Theorymentioning

confidence: 98%

Fear and Phobia: A Critical Review and the Rational-Choice Theory of Neurosis

Rofé¹,

Rofé²

2015

IJPS

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This article reviews the empirical status of theories of fear and phobia. Psychoanalysis received little support, as findings tend to refute its basic assumption that phobia results from repressed material. Although conditioning has its weaknesses, it appears to be the strongest explanation of simple phobia. Findings raise question as to whether interoceptive conditioning can account for the development of panic disorder and agoraphobia, as these disorders develop in the absence of environmental conditioning events. A significant body of research supports Clark's claim that catastrophic misinterpretation of bodily sensations are involved in both the development and treatment of panic disorder and agoraphobia. However, the causal relationship between the two remains unclear. Likewise, while biological factors certainly increase the vulnerability to developing fear and phobia, findings have not yet confirmed that these behaviors are controlled by biological mechanisms. A new theory, the Rational-Choice Theory of Neurosis (Rofé, 2010;Y. Rofé & Rofé, 2013), which preserves the psychoanalytic claim that bizarre phobias need to be explained within a theory that accounts for neuroses by one set of theoretical concepts, was used to resolve the theoretical confusion in this field.

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Phobias and preparedness: replication and extension

Cited by 35 publications

References 6 publications

Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.

Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning.

Prepared stimuli enhance aversive learning without weakening the impact of verbal instructions

Fear and Phobia: A Critical Review and the Rational-Choice Theory of Neurosis

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