Biological explanations of phobias
A01: family studies: Research shows that having a family member with a phobic disorderincreases the risk that an individual develops a similar disorder. Family member who already has the disorder is called a proband.
+ Support comes from Fyer et al: found that proband has 3 times as many relatives who also experienced phobias as normal controls. This shows that the role of genes plays a cause and development of phobias.
+ Solyom et al found: 45% of phobic patients had at least one relative with the disorder compared to a rate of 17% of non-phobic controls. Ost also found that 64% of blood phobics has at least one relative with the same disorder. This also supports the idea that there is a genetic link to phobias and also supports the view that individuals
develop the same disorder as their probands.
- However, 17% of the non-phobic controls in Solyom's study could of had a phobia, but have yet not been diagnosed.