One Biological explanation for phobic disorders is the Evolutionary Approach. This says that some stimuli are more likely to be feared than others eg. Snakes, heights etc. as these are the stimuli that would have been dangerous and fearful to our ancestors in our Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). We have adapted to be fearful of these stimuli as potential threats rather than after an event has happened which gave our ancestors the best chance of survival and to pass on their genes. We are also said to be biologically prepared to rapidly learn an association between particular stimuli and fear from the minute we are born, copying the fear response shown in our parents and learning this ourselves.
Ohman and Soares (1994) conducted a study to support the idea that we fear stimuli as a potential threat rather than after an event occurs by showing a group of participants ‘Masked’ pictures (so they could not fully tell what the object was) of Snakes and Spiders. A higher autonomic nervous system arousal was found in those who had a fear of snakes and spiders when they got shown the masked picture compared to when shown the full picture or compared to that of a participant without a fear of the particular animal. This supports the idea that we have adapted to have a fear of a stimuli as a potential threat as participants were more scared when they were not sure of what the picture was than when they knew exactly what it was.
Another biological explanation of phobic disorders is Genetic Factors. This says that it may be that people inherit an over sensitive fear response to particular stimuli causing them to develop a phobia of that fear response. This can be looked into using both Twin and Family Studies. In Twin studies comparisons are made between the individuals in both Monozygotic (MZ) twins and dizygotic (DZ) twins and then comparing these results between the sets of twins. If the MZ twins show a more similar fear response than DZ twins it suggests that there is in fact a genetic factor in Phobic Disorders whereas if it is in fact the other way round this suggests there is not a genetic factor. Family studies are more general and look at whether or not relatives within the same family have same of similar phobias.
One criticism of genetic factors as an explanation for phobic disorders is that it is very on the side of nature in the nature/nurture debate which means that it ignores theories such as Social Learning Theory which would stress the nurture side. This can be a criticism as both Nature and Nurture are said to be important to explaining Phobic disorders. However when researching genetic factors through twin studies both sides of the nature/nurture debate are being looked into which means if there was more of a nurture factor in phobic disorders than a nature factor it would still be discovered.
Solyom et al (1974) conducted a study to support genetic factors as an explanation for phobic disorders and found that 45% of patients with a phobic disorder had at least one relative with the same disorder compared to only 17% of the non-phobic controls. This supports a genetic basis for phobic disorders as it shows that it is in fact very common for relatives to have the same phobia.
Both Biological Explanations of Phobic Disorder can be seen to be deterministic as they assume that how we act is down to just either our genes or evolutionary factors and suggest that we have no free will to develop phobic disorders of stimuli we have had our own personal bad experiences with. This is a criticism as it is very one sided and therefore should be looked at alongside theories such as Social Learning Theory which would say that we learn phobic disorders through observing someone else’s fear and replicating this.
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