Eysenck’s Incubation Theory: How Are Phobias Acquired?
We have all experienced that feeling of anguish at some point, caused by the presence of a real or imagined danger. It’s about fear.
But… what happens when this fear becomes pathological? So we are talking about a phobia. Eysenck’s incubation theory It arises to explain the acquisition of phobias.
A phobia is an intense and persistent fear or anxiety, practically immediate and invariable regarding a specific and objectively harmless object or situation, which is avoided or endured at the cost of intense discomfort, fear or anxiety
A high percentage of the general population suffers from some type of phobia. Within them, there are various types (social phobia, separation anxiety,…). More specifically and according to the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders), within specific phobia, there are different specifications depending on the feared stimulus:
The most common phobia in the non-clinical population is specific phobia. In the clinical population, however, the most common phobia is panic disorder with agoraphobia. This type is the most serious and disabling of all types of phobias.
Acquisition of phobias
To understand what Eysenck’s theory of incubation is like, it is important to understand some ideas about acquiring phobias Generally, phobias are acquired through direct conditioning, although they can also be acquired indirectly, that is, through vicarious and semantic conditioning (when there are information relationships between stimuli).
As we have SEEN, most phobias are acquired through direct conditioning, although there are differences in the type of phobia:
These two types of phobias are acquired more frequently by past traumatic experiences
Blood phobia
It is mainly acquired by vicarious conditioning Here the transmission of information plays a very important role.
Animal phobia
These are the phobias that are most associated with indirect conditioning (vicarious conditioning in accordance with the proposal of the “disease avoidance” model, according to which sensitivity to disgust/contamination is transmitted to small animals).
Eysenck’s incubation theory
Eysenck’s incubation theory is considered the “third great conditioning model.” It arises as a complement to the law of extinction and it is a model based on classical conditioning.
This theory explains why extinction does not occur in phobias, as well as the process of resistance to extinction. In turn, it considers two types of conditioning:
Type A conditioning:
Motivation is manipulated externally , and the unconditioned response (IR) and the conditioned response (CR) are different. For example, in salivation conditioning, the RI would be food intake, and the CR would be salivation.
Type B conditioning:
Here motivation is generated by the conditioning paradigm itself, and depends less on the motivational state of the organism CR and IR are similar. For example, in the case of aversive conditioning.
According to this theory, anxiety is acquired and maintained by type B conditioning.
The theory defends that exposure to the conditioned stimulus (CS) (without the presence of the unconditioned stimulus, US) does not cause the extinction of the CR. Thus, CR acts as a reinforcer due to its similarity to IR.
For the phobia to be acquired, the strength of the CR must be high (intense), and the duration of exposure to the CS must be brief.
Following Eysenck’s incubation theory The Napalkov Effect arises This is the experimental demonstration that there can be a paradoxical increase (incubation) of an autonomic response (for example blood pressure) upon the successive presentation of the CS alone (in the extinction phase).
Alternatives to the Eysenck model
Some alternatives to Eysenck’s incubation theory have been proposed. One of them is the restoration of fear proposed by Rescorla
According to this, a memory representation of the CS-US association is produced, and upon exposure of the CS the representation of the US is activated.
Another alternative is Davey’s proposed re-evaluation of IS According to this other author, anxiety incubates if after each presentation of the CS, the subject reevaluates the US and overvalues it. The tendency to carry out this overvaluation will depend on:
