Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxiety. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Snake Phobia or Ophidiophobia

 


Ophidiophobia is an intense, irrational fear of snakes. Unlike normal fear, which arises in response to actual danger (like encountering a rattlesnake in the woods), ophidiophobia triggers anxiety even when thinking about snakes or seeing them on television.

Symptoms of ophidiophobia include:

Emotional stress and anxiety

A sense of immediate danger or doom

Rapid heart rate

Sweating

Shaking, trembling

Shortness of breath

Chest pain or discomfort

Nausea

Dizziness, or feeling lightheaded

Fear of losing control or death (also dread and terror)

Tingling sensations

Avoidant behavior (e.g., reptile houses at zoos, nature trails, some movies and jobs)

Prevalence

In the US, 64% reported snakes as a cause of fear—32% reported being “very afraid” (Moore, 2014, March 27). The level of fear is worse for older (over age 65) Americans (79% are scared). Fear of snakes is not the top fear in the UK but is still common at 52% behind fear of heights and public speaking.

The fear of snakes is among the most common fear. About half of a population reported a fear of snakes and 2-3% met diagnostic criteria for snake phobia (Polák, 2016).

Gender Differences

Multiple studies, including Fredrikson, Annas, Fischer and Wik (1996), have found specific gender differences in the prevalence of ophidiophobia. In fact, women are four times more likely to have a phobia of snakes compared to men.


Preparedness Theory and Ophidiophobia:

Humans are biologically predisposed to fear snakes more readily than other animals.

Fear acquisition happens faster with snakes due to our evolutionary history.

The amygdala, a brain structure, which plays a role in processing snake-related fear and response. (The amygdala is also involved in memory formation.)

Causes and Diagnosis:

The fear network in the human brain, involving the amygdala, plays a role in processing snake-related stimuli.

Diagnosis is based on symptoms outlined in the most recent DSM.

Treatment and Overcoming Ophidiophobia:

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is effective in treating specific phobias.

Techniques like exposure therapy help desensitize individuals to snake-related stimuli.

Practical ways to overcome ophidiophobia include gradual exposure, relaxation techniques, and seeking professional help.

Ophidiophobia and Religion

The fear of snakes is common in many cultures. In the Hebrew Bible, a snake appears as a talking character that deceives Eve, the first woman in Genesis.

 

References

Fredrikson, M., Annas, P., Fischer, H., & Wik, G. (1996). Gender and age differences in the prevalence of specific fears and phobias. Behaviour research and therapy34(1), 33–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(95)00048-3

Moore, P. (2014, March 27). Snakes, heights and public speaking are the top three fears in the Home of the Brave. YouGov. Retrieved from https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/8983-argh-snakes

Polák, J., Sedláčková, K., Nácar, D., Landová, E., & Frynta, D. (2016). Fear the serpent: A psychometric study of snake phobia. Psychiatry research242, 163–168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2016.05.024

Cite this post

Sutton, G. W. (2024, March 6). Snake Phobia or Ophidiophobia. Psychology Concepts and Theories. Retrieved from https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2024/03/snake-phobia-or-ophidiophobia.html




Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

Please check out my books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   X  @Geoff.W.Sutton    


You can read many published articles at no charge:

  Academia   Geoff W Sutton     ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 

 

Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation. 



Thursday, February 3, 2022

psychological safety

 


Psychological safety is a social setting characterized by evidence that people in that setting can ask questions, express concerns, make mistakes, and share ideas without feeling they will be punished, experience verbal abuse, or be targeted with microaggressions by other people in that setting.

Psychological safety is vital to teams in work, school, and organizational settings. When people do not feel safe to share a different idea or suggest downsides of other ideas, the business or organization can miss important information that may avoid disaster or lead to significant progress.

A key to psychological safety is trust. When one or more team members signal even mild threats, people may keep quiet to avoid embarrassment and humiliation. Perceived threats activate the fear circuit, which includes the amygdala. 

Effective leaders create a setting where strategic risks can be considered without fear.


Please check out my website   www.suttong.com

   and see my books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Also, consider connecting with me on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton    

You can read many published articles at no charge:

  Academia   Geoff W Sutton     ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 


Thursday, March 12, 2020

Reactive Approach Motivation RAM a psychological science concept

Reactive Approach Motivation (RAM ; McGregor, 2006) refers to the way people deal with anxiety producing threats by becoming extremely zealous, which reduces the anxiety caused by the threat.

The zealous pursuit focuses on an ideal that offers hope and strength, bolsters values and convictions. People are motivated to become closed minded. They may increase religious fervor or political extremism depending on their value system.

RAM is based on the neuropsychology of anxiety. Anxiety rises in situations of uncertainty. RAM proposes that people deal with anxious uncertainty by ardently pursuing meaningful goals. When anxious, people become more vigilant and prepare for fight or flight responses.

Example

People with travel plans during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic anxiously searched online for information about the virus, government announcements, and travel news. Many zealously warned of the growing extent of the flu. Others tried to encourage people with religious messages. Some sought financial safety by selling their shares in businesses. Others focused on repeating messages about washing hands and avoiding social contact. Even the hand washing was couched in religious language as "Holy Hygiene."

Related concepts /  posts

Terror Management Theory

Meaning Maintenance Model



Reference

McGregor, I. (2006). Offensive defensiveness: Toward an integrative neuroscience of compensatory zeal after mortality salience, personal uncertainty, and other poignant self-threats. Psychological Inquiry, 17(4), 299–308. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400701366977

Connections

   My Page    www.suttong.com
   My Books   AMAZON     GOOGLE PLAY STORE
   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton
   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton

Publications (many free downloads)
  Academia   Geoff W Sutton   (PhD)     
  ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton   (PhD)

Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Psychology of "triggers"

In psychology, triggers are events that elicit a response. Clinicians often focus on helping people recognize triggers or events that appear to produce a distressing response as if they had stepped on a mine that triggered an explosion.

People, places, films, songs, smells, words, and many other stimuli can trigger a response or a chain of responses. Some trigger-response pairs are innate like cringing in response to loud noises. But the relatively benign triggers may come to elicit extreme responses following traumatic experiences. For example, my mother was trapped under the stairs when a bomb exploded near our house. She remained hyper-reactive to fireworks, thunder, and gun shots throughout her life.


Although the concept of triggers is often associated with recognizing and coping with events that are upsetting. A different perspective would be to view triggers as those stimuli that routinely elicit a response or chain of responses. In high school, a few of us knew what questions to ask to get a particular teacher off topic, which we often did just to make class more interesting.

A variety of events can elicit pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant reactions. And, the same event may affect different people in different ways. A beach scene with ocean waves may trigger pleasant memories, a smile, and good feelings in some, but remind others of some horrible event. In fact, depending on context, the same stimulus may be perceived as pleasant in one context but obnoxious in another. Certain words are accepted as pleasant teasing from a friend but may trigger anger when coming from a stranger.

Powerful triggers can affect many aspects of our core self. Using the SCOPES model, we can think of a hypothetical response set of a person who survived a mass shooting in church.

Potential triggers could be someone who looked like the shooter, the sounds of gun shots, people who look like those who did not survive, news stories or movies of similar events, and churches.


Hypothetical responses to a trigger of surviving a mass shooting in church
Spiritual
Cry for help. Anger with God.
Cognition
Recurrent images of the horrid event
Overt Behavior
Tensing muscles, closing eyes as if to avoid the image
Physical
Increased heart rate
Emotion
Fear, anger
Social context
Response worsens in church setting



Psychotherapists have helped people recognize triggers of distressing responses and reduce the impact.

Developing life enhancing characteristics may help "trigger" positive rather than negative responses.


Living Well on AMAZON











Connections

   My Page    www.suttong.com
   My Books   AMAZON     GOOGLE PLAY STORE
   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton
   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton

Publications (many free downloads)
  Academia   Geoff W Sutton   (PhD)     
  ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton   (PhD)





Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Spiritual Struggles Psychology of Religion





Spiritual struggles are typically experiences of conflicts of religious or spiritual beliefs, practices, or experiences that cause or extend distress. The distress may be experienced as an emotion such as sadness, anger, or anxiety. In addition, people who struggle may wrestle with conflicting thoughts.

Spiritual struggles can be interpersonal and intrapersonal. Interpersonal spiritual struggles may be between the individual and God such as anger with God for “not showing up as expected” or acting in a way that seemed unloving. Spiritual struggles may also be between the person and others such as a young college woman experiencing conflicts with parents over religious values or conflicts within congregations.

Intrapersonal struggles may be experienced as a failure to live up to spiritual standards of right living or difficulty in forgiving oneself for moral failure. Struggles may also be experienced as a battle with supernatural evil.

Spiritual struggles may be different from other psychological difficulties because of the experience of the supernatural as well as the importance of religion and spirituality to the identity of many people.

Spiritual struggles can be assessed through interviews and survey items.

Some research suggests younger persons and women are more susceptible to struggles than are others.

Spiritual struggles can affect mood and behavior with symptoms of depression and anxiety evident. Religious scholar Marcus Borg referred to anxiety, fear, guilt, and anguish as the told of his spiritual struggle as an adolescent Christian.

The effects of a struggle may be closely linked to the struggle itself or the effects may worsen an existing health or mental health condition. Spiritual struggles have been linked to worsening a variety of general health conditions such as cardiovascular problems and cancer.

Few studies have looked at the possibility of personal growth following a spiritual struggle. This is an area in need of research. An example might be a more mature outlook or sense of peace and wellbeing once the struggle has been resolved.

When spiritual struggles result from a person's behavior that violates their spiritual/moral standards, self-forgiveness may be helpful in repairing the distress and "healing the soul."

I am drawing on a summary by Julie Exline (2013) for this post. Please see her chapter (below) or other works to learn more about spiritual struggles and the names of prominent scientists who study this field.

You can find a variety of scales and survey items related to spirituality at my Assessment and Statistics Blog. Some of the measures are free to use or may be free with permission of the author.  https://statistics.suttong.com/

Some spiritual survey scales and items are included in the book CreatingSurveys  
available on AMAZON worldwide




How to measure Spiritual Struggles and Coping


Brief RCOPE Scale (religious coping)



Related posts






Cite this post 

Sutton, G. W. (2020, January 8). Spiritual struggles. Psychology concepts and theories. https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2020/01/spiritual-struggles.html


Reference

Exline, J. J. (2013). Religious and spiritual struggles. In J. J. Exline (Ed.), APA handbook of psychology, religion, and spirituality (Vol 1): Context, theory, and research. (pp. 459–475). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/14045-025

Connections

   My Page    www.suttong.com
   My Books   AMAZON     GOOGLE PLAY STORE
   FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton
   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton

Publications (many free downloads)
  Academia   Geoff W Sutton   (PhD)     
  ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton   (PhD)



Friday, January 18, 2019

Psychology of Shame




Shame is a pervasive self-evaluative emotional state. People display shame in a slumped body posture with their heads down, avoiding eye-contact. They may express the wish to die or disappear.

Psychologists contrast shame with guilt. In contrast to the shamed self, guilt usually refers to a negative evaluation of a behavioral act. If people agree that they are guilty then, they may apologize for a specific act. In some cases, the person receives forgiveness. 


Shame involves an intense sense of self-awareness in a cultural setting of honor. An example of shame is often seen in victims of rape. Rape is an act that violates the self in an intensely intimate way. The rape-shame experience can be particularly intense in cultures where young women are expected to be virgins until they marry. In cultures of honor, shame regarding sex outside of marriage can extend to the family.

Parents can feel shame as a worsened degree of embarrassment when their children behave contrary to the rules of a culture. Likewise, children may feel shame when their parents behave in publicly unacceptable ways. 

People experience shame when they believe they are in violation of a highly valued cultural expectation. Some cultures place a high value on attractive clothes and bodies. Some cultures place a high value on certain behaviors, activities, or pursuits that are honored as ideals for men or women. For example, military service and participation in sports are highly valued in many cultures. 

Intense emotions can accompany shame including anxiety, depression, and anger. People who struggle with shame and related concerns may need psychotherapy or medical interventions to restore their ability to function adequately. Referrals can usually be obtained from physicians, clergy, and other healthcare providers.

Learn more about shame in the works of psychologist June  Price Tangney (see references).

Cite this article

Sutton, G. W. (2019, January 18). Psychology of shame. Psychology Concepts and Theories. Retrieved from https://suttonpsychology.blogspot.com/2019/01/psychology-of-shame.html


  
References to research on shame

Tangney, J.P. (2011) An interview related to a book about shame.

Tangney, J. P. (1990). Assessing individual differences in proneness to shame and guilt: Development of the Self-Conscious Affect and Attribution Inventory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 102-111.

Tangney, J. P., Miller, R. S., Flicker, L., & Barlow, D. H. (1996). Are shame, guilt, and embarrassment distinct emotions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 1256-1269.




Geoffrey W. Sutton, PhD is Emeritus Professor of Psychology. He retired from a clinical practice and was credentialed in clinical neuropsychology and psychopharmacology. His website is  www.suttong.com

 

See Geoffrey Sutton’s books on   AMAZON       or  GOOGLE STORE

Follow on    FACEBOOK   Geoff W. Sutton    

   TWITTER  @Geoff.W.Sutton    


You can read many published articles at no charge:

  Academia   Geoff W Sutton     ResearchGate   Geoffrey W Sutton 

 

Dr. Sutton’s posts are for educational purposes only. See a licensed mental health provider for diagnoses, treatment, and consultation.