Bill's fear of speaking in public can be accessed through classical, operant, and observational conditioning. Classical conditioning is a type of a learning process where a conditioned inducement becomes connected to a distinct unconditioned inducement (Leadbeater & Dawson, 2017) . The conditioned stimulus is a neutral inducement such as running while an unconditioned stimulus could be anything like falling. When a conditioned stimulus becomes associated with a given unconditioned stimulus that it is not even related to, it triggers a conditioned response, such as the fear of running in the above case scenario (Leadbeater & Dawson, 2017) . In simple terms, classical conditioning observes that a person's fears in a given activity are directly related to the consequences of the event they may have experienced at some point in their life. A person scared of running due to the fear of tripping and falling may have tripped and fallen sometimes back, and probably in the process, they hurt themselves, so each time they think of running, they believe they will fall again.
In Bill's case, his phobia of speaking in public as it relates to classical conditioning may be due to a bad experience of speaking in public as a child. Probably at some point during childhood, he gave a speech in front of the class and might have said one wrong word or mispronounced a name, causing his classmates to laugh and make fun of him. Therefore, Bill associates speaking in public with being laughed at or made fun of. He fears he will say a bad thing or mispronounce a word, causing his colleagues at work to make fun of him. It is also possible that as a child, he may have been shut down during a speech by his peers for one reason or the other. Hence, he may feel that people will never take him seriously when he gives a speech, thus fears to speak in public.
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The other approach to Bill's public speaking phobia is operant conditioning. Operant condition, also referred to as instrumental conditioning, emphasizes the reward and punishment system for action (Leadbeater & Dawson, 2017) . This approach focuses on the association made between an action and its perceived consequence. For instance, children who mess up the house or fail to do their homework may be punished by their parents, while children who clean up their dishes and make their rooms may be rewarded. Therefore, such a child will associate a lack of responsibility with punishment, while the opposite is also true. By reinforcing or punishing the strength of a behavior, a child grows up associating the given actions with its corresponding reward or punishment (Leadbeater & Dawson, 2017) . In developing phobias, a child who gets chased by a dog or cat each time they play with the animal may develop an aversion for the given animal since they associate their closeness to the animal with possible biting.
In the same regards, Bill's phobia could stem from the fact that as a child, he got punished for speaking in front of other people. It could be that he was not allowed to talk at the dinner table or during family TV times in such a way that he would be punished each time he addressed other people gathered for a function. In school, he might have been reprimanded by his elders for speaking to them or trying to raise an issue. Therefore, Bill could have grown up associating addressing people gathered for a function with being reprimanded or beaten. And although he is now at a position where he cannot be criticized for giving a speech to his workmates, the fear of public speaking sticks to him still.
Lastly, observational conditioning is a form of learning in which an individual observes the behaviors of others. By watching how other people react to different issues and activities, a person is more likely to pick the same practices as his peers or the people he associates with (Leadbeater & Dawson, 2017). Consider a family that is addicted to drugs. A child born in such a family will most likely become a drug addict out of the influence the elder members have on him. Such a person will observe the behaviors of abusing substances and drugs and become easily influenced to do what everybody else is doing. The same condition goes for a child born in a family of sportsmen and sportswomen. The child grows up observing the techniques and crafts and is most likely to become a sportsperson themselves when they become of age. Observational learning is simply the power of influence a given environment has on a person.
In the given aspect, Bill's fear of speaking in public could be influenced by the environment he grew up in. It could be that he was born in a family of introverted people who rarely communicated with each other, and from a young age, he learned to be antisocial. It could also be that he hung around peers who were never talkative or loud and outspoken, and he picked the art of being quiet and withdrawn as well. Either way, by learning and adopting the behavioral patterns in his predisposing environment, Bill never fully developed his ability to interact with other people. Therefore, he became withdrawn, low self-esteemed even, to the point that he does not have the social skills to speak in front of other people. Through observational conditioning, Bill was never able to fully develop his personality and interactive social skills, which directly impact his confidence in public speaking.
To help Bill overcome his phobia, it is critical to apply the process of extinction strategy. The strategy mostly works for the operant condition paradigm, in which an individual associates activity with the perceived rewards and punishments. The conditioning already established that Bill's phobia could be out of the fear of being laughed at or made fun of. The process of extinction emphasizes on the need to suppress the punishment to gradually weaken the conditioned response (Javanbakht et al ., 2017). In this scenario, it is essential to cut the adverse reactions associated with public speaking, such as mocking Bill. The strategy could start by applauding him as a positive reinforcement to counter the effect of the punishment he was used to. By praising and urging Bill to continue when making a public speech, he will become more confident in himself, and overcome the negativity he associates public speaking with.
Additionally, the cognitive theory could play an instrumental part in impacting the way Bill thinks of himself and his ability to speak in public. His phobia largely stems from the negative thoughts he has about himself. He doubts his ability to deliver and has low self-esteem regarding the same. The cognitive theory provides a rationale that would modify how Bill feels, thinks, and behaves (Javanbakht et al., 2017) . By channeling positivity into Bill's mind, his emotions and behaviors will change, hence his personality. In this approach, it is essential to remind Bill of his achievements, both in his professional and private life, and point out all the positive attributes he has. By reinforcing such positive energy to him, he will be more assertive in his ability to deliver and impact those around him. He will be more confident in speaking in front of them, for he will realize that they love, and respect him, and will thus listen to him as expected. Bill's intimidation could arise from negative things said to him as a child, such as that he was not good enough, or that he would never amount to anything and nobody would ever take him seriously. Battling this negativity using the cognitive theory will go a long way in ensuring he believes more in himself and the power he has.
References
Javanbakht, A., Duval, E. R., Cisneros, M. E., Taylor, S. F., Kessler, D., & Liberzon, I. (2017). Instructed fear learning, extinction, and recall: additive effects of cognitive information on emotional learning of fear. Cognition and Emotion , 31 (5), 980-987.
Leadbeater, E., & Dawson, E. H. (2017). The evolution of social learning mechanisms: a social insect perspective. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA , 10 .
