Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T16:44:37.928Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Application of Learning Theory to the Treatment of Traffic Phobia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Tom Kraft  and
Ihsan Al-Issa
Tom Kraft
Affiliation:
St. Clement's Hospital, London, E.3
Ihsan Al-Issa
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, College of Education, Baghdad University, Baghdad, Irak
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Common observation indicates that phobic patients tend to avoid the stimuli which are related to their phobia. This characteristic has suggested the analysis of traffic phobia in terms of avoidance learning theory. According to this theory, stimuli which have been associated with a noxious event (accidents in the case of traffic phobia) may acquire aversive properties (fear arousal) and responses which appear in an attempt to avoid these stimuli (accident situation) are reinforced by fear reduction (Skinner and Estes, 1941; Wynne and Solomon, 1955; Keehn, 1961). If the analysis of traffic phobia in terms of avoidance learning is correct, however, accidents would be expected to be a major source of such phobic reactions. The present study gives a clear illustration of a traffic phobia acquired through conditioning in accident situations and its satisfactory treatment by application of learning theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 111 , Issue 472 , March 1965 , pp. 277 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1965 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Eysenck, H. J. (1956). “The questionnaire measurement of neuroticism and extraversion.” Riv. Pskol., 50, 113–140.Google Scholar
Furneaux, W. D., and Gibson, H. B. (1961). “The Maudsley Personality Inventory as a predictor of susceptibility to hypnosis.” J. clin. exp. Hypnos., 9, 167–177.Google Scholar
Keehn, J. D. (1961). “Accident tendency, avoidance learning and perceptual defence.” Austral. J. Psychol., 13, 157–169.Google Scholar
Le Shan, L. L. (1952). “Dynamics in accident-prone behavior.” Psychiat., 15, 73–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Parker, J. W. jr. (1953). “Psychological and personal history data related to accident records of commercial truck drivers.” J. appl. Psychol., 37, 317–320.Google Scholar
Skinner, B. F., and Estes, W. K. (1941). “Some quantitative properties of anxiety.” J. exp. Psychol., 29, 390–400.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. (1953). “A personality scale of manifest anxiety.” J. abnorm. soc. Psychol., 48, 285–290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolpe, J. (1958). Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wynne, L. C., and Solomon, R. L. (1955). “Traumatic avoidance learning: acquisition of normal peripheral autonomic functions.” Genet. Psychol. Monogr., 52, 241–284.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.