Courtney was bitten by her brother's pet white rat. Since then, Courtney has developed a fear of all white animals that is out of proportion with the threat. She even feels fearful when she sees a photo of a white animal. Courtney's reaction to white animals is best explained by ____.

A phobia is an extreme or irrational fear to something. A classically conditioned phobia is "created" when a stimulus that causes fear (in this case the whiteness of the rat that bit Courtney) is related to a neutral stimulus (a white animal). The process takes place when the unconditioned stimulus, the one that causes fear, leads to the response of fear towards the neutral one, such as in the example: Courtney was bitten by her brother's pet white rat. She must have developed an unconditioned, fear response since that episode which lead to her conditioned phobia of white animals.

codedmog101 codedmog101 · Answer 2 · 2020-03-17T15:24:34+01:00

Answer:

Classically conditioned phobia.

Explanation:

Phobia simply mean an extreme fear. In human Psychology, classical conditioning is one of the Important aspect. The idea of classical conditioning was proposed by Ivan Pavlov and John Watson. The stages in Classically conditioned involves; (1). The production of unconditioned response from unconditioned stimulus, (2). A neutral stimulus react with unconditioned stimulus to give the conditioned stimulus, and (3). unconditioned stimulus react or associates with conditioned stimulus to produce a newly generated conditioned response.

From the above stages we can conclude that the phobia was created in Courtney because the the neutral stimulus which is the whiteness in all animals has turned into a conditioned stimulus which now cause a conditioned response which is fear which now later turn to a phobia.