Mowrer’s bifactorial theory: what is it and how does it explain phobias?

This explanatory model of certain anxiety disorders helps to understand how fear works.

We are all afraid of something. This fear is usually an adaptive emotion as it allows us to adjust our behavior to survive. However, sometimes fears or panic reactions to things that may not pose a real danger can occur.

When we talk about these fears or the existence of anxiety, we often ask ourselves the question: why do they appear? How do they appear? Why do they persist over time?

Although there are many hypotheses in this regard, one of the best known and especially linked to the answer to the second question is Mowrer's bifactor theory.. And it is this theory that we are going to talk about in this article.

Mowrer's bifactor theory

Orval Hobart Mowrer's bifactorial theory is an explanatory model first proposed by the author in 1939, which proceeds and attempts to provide an explanatory framework regarding why a phobic stimulus that causes us fear or anxiety continues to cause us fear or anxiety over time despite the fact that the association between this and the unconditioned stimulus that caused it to generate fear has been extinguished.

Thus, this theory starts in its origin from the behaviorist paradigm and learning theories to try to explain why fears and phobias are acquired and especially why they are maintained, especially when we avoid situations or stimuli that generate fear. when we avoid the situations or stimulations that generate anxiety (something that in principle should (something that in principle should gradually make the association between stimulus and discomfort disappear).

In this sense, the author indicates that phobias and fears appear and are maintained through a process of conditioning that takes place in two phasesone in which the initial fear or panic appears and a second one in which the behavioral response to it in the form of avoidance generates the reinforcement of the fear, by avoiding not the aversive but that with which it has been associated.

The two factors or phases

As we have just mentioned, Mowrer establishes in his bifactorial theory that phobias and their maintenance are due to the occurrence of two types of conditioning, which occur one after the other and which allow us to give an explanation of why phobias and fears remain and sometimes even increase with time. These two phases would be the following.

Classical conditioning

First, the process known as classical conditioning takes place: a stimulus that is neutral in principle is associated with a stimulus that generates per se sensations of pain or suffering (unconditioned stimulus), and through this association it ends up acquiring the characteristics of the latter (going from being neutral to conditioned), so that it ends up emitting the same response that would be made in the presence of the original aversive stimulus. the same response that would be made in the presence of the original aversive stimulus is emitted (a conditioned response is then given). (a conditioned response is then given).

As an example, the appearance of a white light (in principle, a neutral stimulus) in a room can become associated with an electric shock (aversive unconditioned stimulus) if they are presented together repeatedly.

This will cause the person, who would initially run away from the shock (unconditioned response) but not from the light, to run away from the white light by associating it with pain (conditioned response). In fact, technically this could cause a phobia to white light, which would lead us to act fleeing or avoiding its appearance or situations in which it may appear..

Instrumental conditioning

In the previous step we have seen how a fear or phobia was formed to an initially neutral stimulus, a white light. But in principle this panic should subside over time if we repeatedly see that the light is not accompanied by electric shocks. How could we explain that the fear is maintained for years?

The answer offered by Mowrer's bifactorial theory to this maintenance of phobias and anxieties is that it is due to the occurrence of instrumental conditioning, in this case of the response and the negative reinforcement that generates the response.. And the fact that when the white light appears, we avoid it or directly prevent ourselves from exposing ourselves to situations in which this light may appear, we are avoiding exposing ourselves to the conditioned stimulus.

This may initially seem to us to be an advantage, in such a way that it reinforces our behavior of avoiding such situations in which that which we fear may appear. However, fear cannot be extinguished, the fear cannot be extinguished since what we are actually doing is avoiding the conditioned element, what we have related to the evil.what we have related to the discomfort, and not the discomfort itself. What is avoided is not the aversive, but the stimulus that warns that it may be near.

In this way, we do not become exposed to the phobic stimulus without it being related to the original aversive stimulus, so that we do not lose the association made and the fear and anxiety it generates (in the case of the example, we would learn to avoid white light, but since we are not exposed to experience white light we cannot check if a shock appears later, which in the end causes the fear of light to persist).

Situations and disorders in which it applies

Mowrer's bifactorial theory proposes an explanatory model which, although not without criticism, has often been used as one of the main hypotheses as to why a fear or anxiety that causes us to avoid a stimulus, having been associated with some kind of aversive stimulation, does not disappear despite the fact that the stimulation that generates discomfort or anxiety does not occur.. In this sense, Mowrer's bifactorial theory can explain some well-known disorders, among them the following.

1. Phobias

One of the main disorders for which bifactor theory offers a plausible explanation is the set of phobic disorders. In this sense we can include both specific phobias to a certain stimulus or situation and more general phobias such as social phobia or even agoraphobia.

Under this paradigm phobias would arise in the first place due to the association between the feared stimulus and a sensation or experience of pain, discomfort or helplessness for the phobic person.The phobias would then persist over time due to the unconscious attempt to avoid future or possible similar situations.

This means that over time the fear not only remains but often even increases, generating anticipation (which in turn generates anxiety) despite not facing the situation itself.

2. Panic disorder and other anxiety disorders

Panic disorder is characterized by the recurrent appearance of panic or anxiety crises, in which a series of symptoms appear such as tachycardia, hyperventilation and sensation of suffocation, sweating, trembling, feeling of depersonalization, feeling of being out of one's senses, feeling of being in a state of panic.The symptoms include tachycardia, hyperventilation and choking, sweating, tremors, feeling of depersonalization, feeling of having a Heart attack, of losing control of one's own body or even of dying.

This highly aversive experience for the sufferer ends up generating anticipatory anxiety, so that the subject suffers from anxiety the idea of suffering another crisis or may even change their habitual behavior to avoid them.

In this sense, Mowrer's bifactor theory would also serve as an explanation of why the level of fear or discomfort may not decrease or even increase in the face of avoidance as a measure to avoid experiencing it.

3. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and other obsessive disorders

OCD and other similar disorders can also explain the reason for the persistence or even increase of discomfort over time. In OCD, sufferers experience intrusive and incessant intrusive and unacceptable thoughts, which generate great anxiety and which they try to actively and that they try to block in an active and persistent way.

This anxiety causes them great suffering, and often they may end up generating some kind of mental or physical ritual that temporarily relieves it (although the subject himself may not find meaning or relationship with the obsessive thoughts to its realization).

This leads to learning through operant conditioning that the compulsion becomes the way to reduce the anxiety caused by the obsessions.

However, this temporary relief turns out to be detrimentalHowever, this temporary relief turns out to be detrimental, since in the background there is an avoidance of what generates the fear, which results in the fear remaining latent. Thus, every time the thought appears, the compulsive ritual will be necessary and it is even possible that with time it will become more and more frequent.

4. Stereotypes and prejudices

Although in this case we are not strictly speaking dealing with a disorder, the fact is that Mowrer's bifactorial theory is also applicable when it comes to offering an explanatory framework for why some prejudices and negative stereotypes may remain active.

Although there are many factors involved, in some cases stereotypes and prejudices arise from a conditioned fear (either through personal experience or, more commonly, through cultural transmission or vicarious learning) that individuals or subjects with certain characteristics (the avoidance becoming a behavioral behavior). (the avoidance becoming an instrumentally conditioned behavior or response).

Likewise, this avoidance makes the fear or rejection last over time, since the subject does not manage to extinguish this fear by avoiding not a real harm but a fear of being harmed by these subjects.

In this sense we can be talking about gender stereotypes, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or even political ideology.

Bibliographical references:

• American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Fifth edition. DSM-V. Masson, Barcelona.
• Belloch, Sandín and Ramos (2008). Manual de Psicopatología. McGraw-Hill. Madrid.
• Froján, M.X., de Prado, M.N. and de Pascual, R. (2017). Cognitive techniques and language: A return to behavioral origins. Psicothema, 29 (3): 352-357.
• Mowrer, O.H. (1939). A Stimulus-Response Analysis of Anxiety and its Role as a reinforcing agent. Psychological Review, 46 (6): 553-565.
• Mowrer, O.H. (1954). The psychologist looks at language. American Psychologist, 9 (11): 660-694.
• Santos, J.L. ; García, L.I. ; Calderón, M.A. Sanz, L.J.; de los Ríos, P.; Izquierdo, S.; Román, P.; Hernangómez, L.; Navas, E.; Ladrón, A and Álvarez-Cienfuegos, L. (2012). Psicología Clínica. Manual CEDE de Preparación PIR, 02. CEDE. Madrid.