PHOBIAS

6pts
Hamish= phobia of height
Desensitisation?
How therapist could help Hamish?
Step:
What: Define phobia and desensitisation
How: The process of desensitisation (Hierarchy of Fear, positive reinforcement,
Gradual exposure)
Why: How it could help to reduce phobia?

What: Hamish- phobia of height (stimuli-response)

How: How therapist could desensitize fear feelings of Hamish? Using what
technique? How to conduct?
Gradual exposure: starting to interact with seeing pictures, from animated to
realistics picture. When participants can interact freely to picture => using actual
experiences
Why: when it can be considered successful?
When he could freely stand on the top building without fear

10pts
Kirsty= phobia of balloons (one burst near her face- young)
=> Loud noise = extreme anxiety => avoids situations such as birthday party,
wedding
Investigating the level and treatment to help her by using a case study?

Outline:
Purpose: Overcome phobia= case study (rare phenomenon)
People: Kirsty= specific phobia patients + name the reasons from the question.
Giving informed consent
Place: frequency location
Procedure:
1/ Questionnaire- Feeling thermometer + open ended questions
Fear scale: 0(no scare)-8(extreme)
Subject: Pictures of balloon with different size and color, the verbal form of the
sound (bing-bang)
Gain quantitative data
Aim to realize actual fear= planning suitable plan
Compare fear performance over a time period
Open ended- describe the reasons why fear?
Gain qualitative data
Aim to investigate further information about the real cases
2/ Gradual exposure
Starting with animated pictures of least square objects base on the result of feeling
thermometer
Least scare -> most scare animated picture
Animated-> realistic such as real videos
When considering changing objects?= Downward trend in the result of
questionnaire
Considered change to real life situation: When no fear and panic reactions shown
when seeing real videos and the questionnaire reach 0-2 (once a week)
Real life situation: from small party to large events.
Gain data: Naturalistic covert non-participants Unstructured observations.
Researcher stand near the participants to observe; and support emergency
situation
Emergency situation: When she shows extreme fear = Stop immediately and
changing to lighter scale objects (semi-realistic pictures to animated pictures ) until
she get comfortable
Success: No anxiety and panic reaction shown. All the categories in questionnaire
reach 0.
Observation
Naturalistic-Controlled
Participants-Non-participants
Structured-Unstructured
Overt-Covert
Required feature
Type Required Features
Case Study (a) details about the participant: Demographic/ What special details/
Specific/ What need to be studied in this case study?
(b) content of information collected: type+ details????
(c) two or more techniques for data collection (observation, interview,
interview+use rating scales from exernal observer,... – at least two)
(d) analysis / interpretation / triangulation: (description of how data
used: qualitative and/or quantitative; triangulation – making sure the
sources agree to be confident in the conclusion. Note: this is not about
reliability)
Longitudinal (a) tests/tasks: measures used (e.g. description of tasks, tests, questions,
examples). This should be standardised between intervals
(b) scoring: how the tasks/tests/questions will be scored or analysed (e.g.
ratings, adding up totals, interpretation of qualitative data, comparing
scores on the same tests over time such as with averages).
(c) frequency/interval: pattern of testing over time (frequency, staffing,
reuse of tasks/tests) Note: an experiment is not acceptable, i.e. cannot just
be a repeated measures design with one test and one retest of a single
measure of a dependent variable.
(d) controls/standardisation: ways to maintain parity across testing
intervals.
(e) recontacting participants: Ways to contact participants overtime
Observation (a)Naturalistic- Controlled
Natural/ manipulated factors
(b)Participants-Non Participant
researcher join in the ppts group, look from the ppts view/ observe with
objective view and distance away
(c)Structured-Unstructured
Behavioural categories/ record all
(d)Overt-Covert
If appropriate, inter observer reliability
Self-report (a)Question format: Open/close? For close, using at least 2 from
(questionnai rating/likert/limited options, and 2 examples for each types
re) (b)Examples: At least 2 for close+open
(c)Scoring/Interpretation: How to get a score? If qualitative, how to
interpret it? How can use data for concluding?
(d)Technique: Direct (pencil+paper)/ Online (Google form/ survey?)
(e)Filler: Not necessary but recommended to mislead the aim= validity
(f)Inter rater reliability in interpreting
Self-report (a)Question format: Open/close?
(interview) (b)Examples:
(c)Scoring/Interpretation: How to analyse data
(d)Technique: Face to face/ Online/ Telephone
(e)Filler
(f)Format: Semi/Structured/Unstructured
Correlation (a) 2 Co-variables (Clearly defined and operationalised)
(b) Measure of 1st co-variable
 (c)Measure of 2nd co-variable
(d)Relationship: Comparison and SCATTERGRAPH!!! (+ve/-ve?
strong/weak/none?)
Experiment (a) independent variable: Operationalised, at least 2 ( if one add control)
condition
(b) dependent variable: Operationalised + how to measure
(length/frequency,...)
(c) controls/standardisation; How variable can be controlled? How to
keep standardisation
(d) experimental design: any named (clear that different participants in
each, how allocated etc.)
(e) location: Laboratory (controlled setting)/ Field (natural setting)?
Correlational study
 Dr Caesar’s purpose is to investigate the correlation between the size of the
animal and its severity to the patient's phobia by using a correlational study with
questionnaires as a data collection technique. He could post the advertisement for
the study on social media and the participants will be recruited when replying to the
post. Participants are required to have animal phobias, or have used experience. He
could ask what type of animal phobia they have to be more specific. He should seek
50 participants between 18-50 years old, 25 for each sex. Participants will be given
informed consent to take part in the study and will be asked to complete the online
form in 1 week. The study will be conducted at participants’ homes or any location
that is convenient to them for flexibility.

The first co-variable is the size of the animal, which is determined by the
experimenters. Dr Caesar could prepare 10-20 pictures of different animals of
different sizes, such as an elephant and an ant. He and his assistants will rate the
picture from 1 to 10, with 1 is very small and 10 is very large. The size of the animal
is determined by calculating the mean rating score for each animal's pictures. If
there are any outliers data, they should sit together and make consensus. The
second co-variable is animal severity. Dr Caesar could using the feeling
thermometer questionnaire to measure how people scare to these animals. The
questionnaire consists animal pictures and a rating scale from 0-8 for each picture,
with 0 is no scare and 8 is severe. The online form is personally designed to each
participants by excluding the animal pictures they have phobia for when sending
the form. This aim to protect them from psychological harm. Others pictures will be
the same across all participants.

For data analysing, After collecting data from the online form, Dr Ceasar
could establish the co-variable table, each data pair is the size of an animal and the
rated severity for that animal from each participants. After that, he could plot it on
the scattergrams, which the x axis is severity and y axis is the size. He could draw
the correlation line to connect as much variable points as possible and could seek
for the correlation. If the dataset is slope upwards, there is a positive correlation
between the size and severity of animals. If the dataset is slope downwards, there is
a negative correlation between the size and severity of animals. If no correlation
line can be drawn, it can be concluded that size of animal does not correlate with
severity. Also, the more clustered between data points, the stronger the correlation.
Lab experiment
iv dv
experimental design
how dv was measure
sample size
sampling technique
Mock test
The purpose of Tanya study is to investigate prosocial behaviours in children by
using questionnaire for teachers. The study can be conducted in natural setting-
Tanya’s local school. It will be handled everyday from 9AM to 3Pm until the class
ended to ensure she and teachers could keep track of the children’s prosocial
behaviour. The teachers will be asked to observe children during class and even the
break time and lunchtime. After class, they will be asked to fill in an online for,
about what they have observed today.
Tanya could prepare the online questionnaire initially, before giving to the teachers.
She could ask various type of question based on main categories: Prosocial
behaviours, the context and how children behave prosocially. For closed question,
she could ask some limited option question such as “Do you think the child in this
class are friendly to their friends? Yes/No” and “What period do you think the child
most actively interact with their friends? Lunchtime/ Breaktime/ Class time”. Also,
she could ask the teacher to rate how friendly the children are with their friend from
1-10 scale with 1 is nt friendly and 10 is very friendly, or rating how interesting the
breaktime context is to children from 1-10 scale with 1 is very boring and 10 is very
interesting. Also, for opened questions, she could ask teachers to describe further
how children interact with each others and “Why do they think that the interactions
is positive or negative behaviours” This could help her to gain qualitative data to
investigate further behaviours. Also, she could ask some filler question such as “Do
the children engage in class activities?” Orr “How the children feels while hearing
the breaktime signals such as the bell rings” to mislead the aim. She could refer
back to the main topic ny asking some question about the related context such as
breaktime. The data collects in filler questions should be excluded in the final data
analysis part. She should give same online form to all teachers participating in the
study to keep standardisation.

For the data analysis part, she could calculate the mean score from the rating
scales questions to see the friendliness of the children and the features of the
context. Aslo, she could use the a bar chart to plot results from limited options
questions to compare between group such as “Yes or No” easier. For qualitative
data such as the response for open questions, she could interpret data and
categorise in to 3 main categories: Positive, negative and neutral response with her
assistant. Tanya and her assistant will interpret and code responses independently
and compare to each other when finished to establish inter rater reliability. She
should look for positive correlation between her and her assistance results. The
analysis of qualitative data could help her to understand how children behave
prosocially in school context further than simply looking the bar charts and scores.