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Running Head: ETIOLOGY AND CONSEQUENCES OF PHOBIAS

The Etiology and Consequences of Specific Phobias
Rebecca Palmer
New College

While snakes and spiders may have some crawling up the walls, others refuse to look out the windows of tall buildings or even venture outside. Fears and phobias exist on a continuum of severity; phobias often (if not always) create avoidance behaviors which maintain phobic responses. They range in intensity and kind, with specific phobias (heights, spiders, snakes, etc.) being the most common and variable. Phobias are defined as a reaction beyond normal proportion to a situation, one that cannot be explained or reasoned away, is beyond voluntary control and leads to avoidance of the stimuli or situation (Ollendick et al, 2002). Also, the phobic must recognize his reactions as excessive and unreasonable (as cited in Davey, 1997). Generally these phobias onset in childhood and are relatively stable throughout life (Muris et al, 2002). The etiology of specific phobias has been contested since the age of Darwin and still remains a debated facet of psychology today. Currently, three main theories exist attempting to explain the etiology of phobias: evolutionary, behavioral, and cognitive. Alone, each of these theories lacks important considerations. With some slight modifications to each theory, they can be combined to trace a plausible path to phobias.

The evolutionary theory of fears can be first attributed to Darwin. Our proto-technological ancestors would have had to readily deal with stimuli and situations that threatened their reproductive fitness. Through these repeated threatening situations, it is believed that specific threats that were relevant to proto-technological humans are still relevant phobias today (Minika & Ohman, 2002). Supposedly this theory accounts for the amount of spider, snake, and height phobics (among others). Often, parents of children with specific phobias cannot seem to remember when their child first became afraid, citing they have "always" been afraid of the aversive stimuli (Davey, 1997). However, to claim that because one cannot remember the origin of her phobia, does not simply mean it has always been present or that it is evolutionary. The Phobic Origin Questionnaire aims to pin-point the source of phobias, and yet has several limitations because of its self reported nature (Muris et al, 2002). Regardless, if there were an innate evolutionary basis for certain phobias, it would be assumed that heritability

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