Essay Sample on Biological Preparedness

Introduction

Anything suffering from a phobia is faced with distress and devastating conditions. Fears can cause psychological responses which can interfere with day to day routine. According to research, it is evident that most phobias are as a result of biological stimuli. Biological preparedness describes why some fears come more efficiently as compared to others. The scientist has tried to explore things concerning the concern, and they have majored most on what stimulate the phobic responses and how to treat them. The origin of phobia can be described as conditioned responses as per the Pavlovian classical conditioning. According to the preparedness, theory fears are evolutional, and the animals tend to be frightened by specific stimuli. This essay will describe the biological preparation mostly concerning the dog responses to the storm by fear.

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According to Pavlov in classical conditioning, automatic reflexes in the body such as salivating and even blinking can be directed to respond to neutral stimuli. Pavlov noted that dogs would begin to salivate before they see the food and this would happen involuntarily. By doing this after a series of experiments and making it the unconditioned stimulus he decided to use the metronome before giving them the food. However, this did not cause the dogs to salivate. After some trials, he saw that the dogs would now respond to the ring of the metronome. The result shows that the initially neutral stimuli that are the metronome had now become a conditioned stimulus. By this experiment, he came up with a conclusion that similar to the salivation the animal phobias are based on the same theory.

According to the classical conditioning theory by Pavlov, we see that every animal can develop phobia so long as the experience it had was in close relation with trauma and is known as the equipotentiality. And that is how the dogs get their neuroses to storm.

The phobias can also be caused by the genetic factor in such a case where you find that identical twins have the same phobias yet they have grown in different stimuli. We also see that the dogs that are used for herding are more likely to suffer from storm fears, unlike the other types. The dog may also have negative experiences such as in the case of Pavlov's theory or even may be exposed to other pets that fear the stimuli, and as a result, the dog gets a phobia to the stimulus.

Dogs suffering from a thunderstorm may exhibit many indicators. The dog may run away in search for a place where it feels safe; it may also decide to stay by the owner following to every area where he/she moves. It may also start barking, pacing, whining or even panting which are signs of a fear reaction. The owner of the dog also tends to feel that the dog is afraid. If he fails to do so, the dog might end up being punished for no reason. However, the good thing is that the dog's phobia can be treated and the dog continues with a normal life as before.

According to cognitive theory is that the way one thinks is a significant determinant of the emotion and even their behavior. The anxiety disorders which fall into the psychiatric disorders the treatment of the phobia can be of two ways according to the cognitive biases' procedure. The first one is attention biased where the victim is supposed to pay attention to the negative signals and not the positive ones. In our case, the dog should be taught how to relax its mat. This should be done by using some reinforcement such as during the dog, capturing or even shaping and with time the dog will realize that the stimulus causes no harm and hence the fear will go. The second one is interpretation biased where information is misinterpreted, and one may think that the dog is frightened by its appearance of which it may not be.

Thus, we see that storm phobia in dogs can be disturbing to the extent of making the dog and the dog owner relationship to be ruined. Therefore, one should understand the behavior of the pet and try to cure it for both of them to remain close.

References

Crowell-Davis, S. L., Seibert, L. M., Sung, W., Parthasarathy, V., & Curtis, T. M. (2003). Use of clomipramine, alprazolam, and behavior modification for treatment of storm phobia in dogs. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 222(6), 744-748.

Botella, C., Banos, R. M., Guerrero, B., Garcia-Palacios, A., Quero, S., & Raya, M. A. (2006). Using a flexible virtual environment for treating a storm phobia. PsychNology Journal, 4(2), 129-144.