Anxiety and Phobic Disorders

Phobic disorders make up a large part of the anxiety disorders anomalies. A phobia is a persistent fear of objects or situations that are disproportional to the threat posed therein. There are several distinct characteristics of phobias. They are highly specific as to persons, objects, or situations. People suffering from them display physical and cognitive attributes of anxiety, however, do not have an extreme distortion of reality. While being the most common behavior disorder in …

…The biological perspective says that some people are born predisposed to phobias, as twin studies have shown some genetic connection. While the evidence is not strong for any direct genetic transmission of a specific phobia, Seligman proposed that fears develop non-randomly and are learned more easily by those psychologically predisposed. Finally, the cognitive perspective suggests that phobias occur because of consistent overestimation of the dangerous items or situations, which cause fear to be appraised unrealistically.