Question

multiple choice 1 point
which statement is true regarding phobias?
people with phobias are particularly likely to have had a bad experience with the object or situation that they fear.
a person can develop a phobia without directly experiencing the feared object or situation.
drugs that enhance epinephrine can help people learn to overcome phobias.
humans are equally likely to develop a phobia to just about any stimulus.
previous

Explanation:

• For the first option: Phobias often develop from conditioning (e.g., observational learning or indirect associations), not just direct bad experiences. So the claim that people with phobias "particularly likely" to have had a bad direct experience is false.
• For the second option: Phobias can form through vicarious learning (e.g., seeing others' traumatic experiences with a stimulus) or informational transmission (hearing about dangers), so direct experience isn’t necessary. This statement is true.
• For the third option: Epinephrine - enhancing drugs don’t help "learn to overcome" phobias. Treatments like exposure therapy or CBT are used, and these drugs don’t target the learning/extinction of fear responses.
• For the fourth option: Humans are not equally likely to develop phobias to all stimuli. There’s a preparedness theory - we’re more likely to fear evolutionarily relevant stimuli (snakes, heights) due to ancestral threats, so this is false.

Answer:

A person can develop a phobia without directly experiencing the feared object or situation.