Environmental. Environmental risk factors for specif ic phobias, such as parental over-
protectiveness, parental loss and separation, and physical and sexual abuse, tend to pre-
dict other anxiety disorders as well. As note d earlier, negative or traumatic encounters
with the feared object or situation sometime s (but not always) precede the development of
specific phobia. 
Genetic and physiological. There may be a genetic suscepti bility to a certain category of
specific phobia (e.g., an individual with a first-degree relative with a specific phobia of an-