Conditioning experiences and phobias

Harald Merckelbach; Marcel A. van den Hout; Rense Hoekstra; Corine de Ruiter

doi:10.1016/0005-7967(89)90149-6

Conditioning experiences and phobias

Harald Merckelbach^*, Marcel A. van den Hout, Rense Hoekstra, Corine de Ruiter

^*Corresponding author for this work

Experimental psychopathology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

A retrospective study was conducted to examine the extent to which phobias are associated with a conditioning pathway to fear. The Phobic Origin Questionnaire (Öst and Hugdahl, Behav. Res. Ther. 19, 439-477, 1981) was administered to a sample of 91 phobic outpatients (patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobics, simple phobies). Results show clearly that conditioning experiences occur more frequently than either vicarious or informational, learning experiences, which confirms the findings previously reported by Rimm, Janda, Lancaster, Nahl and Dittmar (Behav. Res. Ther. 15, 231-238, 1977) and by Öst and Hugdahl (1981; Behav. Res. Ther. 21, 623-631, 1983). Yet, conditioning experiences consist mainly of panic attacks in confined environments. The findings also suggest that a considerable number of phobias are based on a combination of different pathways to fear.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	657-662
Number of pages	6
Journal	Behaviour Research and Therapy
Volume	27
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(89)90149-6
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 1989

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title = "Conditioning experiences and phobias",

abstract = "A retrospective study was conducted to examine the extent to which phobias are associated with a conditioning pathway to fear. The Phobic Origin Questionnaire ({\"O}st and Hugdahl, Behav. Res. Ther. 19, 439-477, 1981) was administered to a sample of 91 phobic outpatients (patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobics, simple phobies). Results show clearly that conditioning experiences occur more frequently than either vicarious or informational, learning experiences, which confirms the findings previously reported by Rimm, Janda, Lancaster, Nahl and Dittmar (Behav. Res. Ther. 15, 231-238, 1977) and by {\"O}st and Hugdahl (1981; Behav. Res. Ther. 21, 623-631, 1983). Yet, conditioning experiences consist mainly of panic attacks in confined environments. The findings also suggest that a considerable number of phobias are based on a combination of different pathways to fear.",

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AU - Merckelbach, Harald

AU - van den Hout, Marcel A.

AU - Hoekstra, Rense

AU - de Ruiter, Corine

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N2 - A retrospective study was conducted to examine the extent to which phobias are associated with a conditioning pathway to fear. The Phobic Origin Questionnaire (Öst and Hugdahl, Behav. Res. Ther. 19, 439-477, 1981) was administered to a sample of 91 phobic outpatients (patients with panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobics, simple phobies). Results show clearly that conditioning experiences occur more frequently than either vicarious or informational, learning experiences, which confirms the findings previously reported by Rimm, Janda, Lancaster, Nahl and Dittmar (Behav. Res. Ther. 15, 231-238, 1977) and by Öst and Hugdahl (1981; Behav. Res. Ther. 21, 623-631, 1983). Yet, conditioning experiences consist mainly of panic attacks in confined environments. The findings also suggest that a considerable number of phobias are based on a combination of different pathways to fear.

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Conditioning experiences and phobias

Abstract

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