ETIOLOGY OF SPIDER PHOBIA - CLASSIFICATORY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN 2 ORIGINS INSTRUMENTS

The origins of fear of spiders was investigated in 33 spider phobic Ss entering a treatment study. All Ss completed Menzies and Clarke's (19 93a) Origins Questionnaire (OQ) (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 3 55-365) and Ost and Hugdahl's (1981) Phobic Origins Questionnaire (POQ ) (Behaviour Research and Therapy, 19, 439-447). The results for the i ndividual questionnaires were similar to those reported in previous st udies. However a comparison of assignments of origin category for the two questionnaires showed widely discrepant results. The POQ returned 17 positive responses for classical conditioning, the OQ only 2. By co ntrast the OQ returned 10 origins as 'non-conditioning traumatic event ', 9 of which returned positive responses for classical conditioning o n the POQ. A further 15 Ss on the OQ were categorised as 'always been this way', the preponderance of these being classified as vicarious or informational in origin on the POQ. The POQ does not have a specific question or category for non-associative acquisition of phobias. The r esults of the origins assignments are detailed and their relation to t he structure and questions of the questionnaires is outlined. Past stu dies using the POQ have produced results supporting acquisition of a s ubstantial proportion of phobias by classical conditioning. The findin gs of this study suggest that such results mainly reflect inherent bia s in that instrument.