Classical conditioning helps to reinforce how developing children are hugely susceptible to the environment and their life experiences such as fear.
An alternative theory which also relies heavily on the socialisation and life experiences of children is social learning theory. Vicarious learning means that you learn through a model, in most cases for young children, like Anna, it will be their mother or guardian (a live model). Unlike with classical conditioning this involves the child becoming more active in their learning through observation, a strength in this theory as it means children are learning to process and consider information. They do this by giving attention to their environment, retaining what they see, replicating it and keeping …show more content…
Children are likely to take on a models attitude if they’re an authority figure, in Anna’s case her mother, as mothers appear to be more influential models than strangers (Egliston & Rapee, 2007). In Bjorn’s case it may be that he has never been exposed to models reaction to snakes. Therefore Anna’s model must have shown negative responses to snakes for her to take on the attitude that you should be fearful of snakes. Despite a slight age gap, Gerull and Rapee (2002) found that infants, 15-20 months of age, appeared to show more fear and avoidance behaviour of a rubber snake/spider proceeding observation of their mothers negative response towards it. Vicarious learning has shown to be an influential part of learning, and a strong theory for Anna’s fear of snakes, it has also been suggested as a more efficient way of learning, as much or more than hands-on learning (Stegmann 2012). Vicarious learning explains …show more content…
It has been suggested that through an inherited predisposition to form phobic behaviour towards specifically threatening stimuli has evolved through natural selection. This is a reductionist view, stripping humans to their basic impulses for survival and relying heavily on nature’s role. This theory would mean that as snakes are dangerous, Anna has had the predisposition to react in fear. Due to the percentages of heritability not reaching 100% we can assume that this is not the case for everyone, like Bjorn. Studies into animal behaviours to stimuli such as snakes suggest a similar pattern, also supporting evolution. Similar to in born responses in babies, such as the swimming movement babies make when their spine is tickled, it is believed that his can generalise to aspects of behaviour such as fear. Evidence has shown that compared to laboratory reared monkeys, wild monkeys display fear towards snakes when presented with toy ones (Mineka et al 1984). It may be argued that wild monkeys have had the chance to experience trauma with snakes which would conflict this theory however with snakes being such a predominately feared species throughout the animal kingdom it cannot be ignored as an explanation for Anna’s fear. Biological evidence of the diathesis stress model could also coincide with Bjorn’s fearless state towards snakes.