McGrath, T. et al. (1990) ‘Successful treatment of a noise phobia in a nine-year-old girl with systematic desensitisation in vivo’, Journal of Educational Psychology 10 (1), 79–83);
Background
This is the second study we will be looking at from the ‘Treatments of Dysfunctional Behaviour’ section of ‘Dysfunctional Behaviour’, as part of your OCR A2 Health and Clinical Psychology course. It is further categorised into ‘Behavioural.‘
As the perspective of this study is behaviourist, it is high recommended that you read: About Behaviorism
Before you read this study, make sure that you have read and are familiar with the Little Albert study by Watson and Raynor (1920)
Synopsis
McGrath, T. et al. (1990) – successfully managed to treat a nine year old girl who had a noise phobia.
Aim
To treat a girl with specific noise phobias using systematic desensitisation.
Method and Design
A case study that details the treatment of a noise phobia in one girl.
Participant
A nine-year-old girl called Lucy, who had a fear of sudden loud noises, including: balloons, party poppers, guns, cars backfiring and fireworks.
Procedure
Lucy was brought to the therapy session and told what would happen. Her parents gave consent.
At the first session, Lucy constructed a hierarchy of feared noises.
Lucy was taught breathing and imagery to relax, and was told to imagine herself at home on her bed with her toys.
Findings
At the end of the first session, Lucy was reluctant to let balloons be burst.
By the end of the fourth session, Lucy was able to signal a balloon to be burst 10 metres away.
On the fifth session, Lucy was able to pop the balloons herself.
Over the next three sessions, Lucy was able to pull a party popper if the therapist held it.
By the tenth and final session, Lucy’s fear thermometer scores had gone from 7/10 to 3/10 for balloon popping, from 9/10 to 3/10 for party poppers and from 8/10 to 5/10 for the cap gun.
Conclusion
It appears that noise phobias in children are amenable to systematic desensitisation.
McGrath et al (1990) Evaluation
– Reliability – the study is low in reliability because only one participant took part in the study, it would be difficult to generalise the results to other wider populations.
+ Construct Validity – the study supports the behaviourist perspective of learning and the behaviourist method of systematic desensitisation.
+ Usefulness – the research is useful because it shows that it is possible to cure phobias using systematic desensitisation.
References
McGrath, T. et al. (1990) ‘Successful treatment of a noise phobia in a nine-year-old girl with systematic desensitisation in vivo’, Journal of Educational Psychology 10 (1), 79–83);
Further Reading
Psych Yogi’s Top Ten Psychology Revision Tips for the A* Student
