Covariation bias in flight phobics

Covariation estimates (CEs) between fear-relevant (FR) stimuli (slides of airplane crash sites) or fear-irrelevant (FI) stimuli (slides of airplanes in flight or mushrooms) and an aversive outcome (electrical shock) were examined in 15 flight phobics (high-fear participants) and 15 non-flight-phobic individuals (low-fear participants) by means of an illusory correlation experiment. In spite of a random relationship between all slide categories and outcome (illusory correlation), flight phobics exhibited a covariation bias and showed higher CEs for the contingency between FR slides and shocks than for the contingency between FI slides and shocks in a first experimental block. The CEs of flight phobics for FR slides and shocks was significantly higher than that of non-flight-phobic individuals, while high- and low-fear participants did not differ in their CEs for the other slide-shock combinations. However, even high-fear individuals were able to correct their initial covariation bias in subsequent illusory correlation blocks, presumably based on disconfirming situational information.     

Covariation bias in panic-prone individuals.

Covariation estimates between fear-relevant (FR; emergency situations) or fear-irrelevant (FI; mushrooms and nudes) stimuli and an aversive outcome (electrical shock) were examined in 10 high-fear (panic-prone) and 10 low-fear respondents. When the relation between slide category and outcome was random (illusory correlation), only high-fear participants markedly overestimated the contingency between FR slides and shocks. However, when there was a high contingency of shocks following FR stimuli (83%) and a low contingency of shocks following FI stimuli (17%), the group difference vanished. Reversal of contingencies back to random induced a covariation bias for FR slides in high and low-fear respondents. Results indicate that panic-prone respondents show a covariation bias for FR stimuli and that the experience of a high contingency between FR slides and aversive outcomes may foster such a covariation bias even in low-fear respondents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autonomic nervous system changes associated with a spider phobic reaction.

Tested the theory that autonomic nervous system arousal increases during a phobic reaction. 11 spider phobics and 11 nonphobics (female undergraduates) viewed spider, seascape, and surgical slides while several physiological responses were continuously recorded. Spider phobics showed significantly faster heart rate, greater heart-rate variability, and vasoconstriction during spider slide presentations than nonphobics. Spider phobics also showed more frequent phasic skin responses but not larger skin response amplitudes to spider slides. Respiration rate and respiration amplitude were not significantly different for the 2 groups. It appears that while a general autonomic nervous system arousal occurs during a spider-phobic reaction, the demand characteristics of the phobic situation seem to determine which physiological responses are most affected. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phobia-relevant illusory correlations: The role of phobic responsivity.

The authors investigated the role of phobic responsivity in the generation of phobia-relevant illusory correlations. As a means of disentangling the contributions of prior fear and elicited fear responses, half of a group of phobic women received 1 mg alprazolam (n?=?21), and half received a placebo (n?=?22). A group of nonfearful women (n?=?24) was included to control for prior fear per se. Participants were exposed to slides of spiders, weapons, and flowers that were randomly paired with a shock, a siren, or nothing. Postexperimental covariation estimates and on-line outcome expectancies were assessed. Irrespective of both prior and elicited fear, participants postexperimentally overassociated spiders and shock. Yet, only women with spider phobia displayed a persisting fear-confirming expectancy bias. This bias was similar for the placebo and alprazolam groups. Thus, the bias appeared to be due to preexisting phobogenic beliefs, whereas phobic responsivity played a negligible role. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychophysiology of fear imagery: Differences between focal phobia and social performance anxiety.

Studied 11 spider phobics and 16 speech anxious undergraduates who imaged fear scenes with spider and public-speaking content and a series of standard scenes that were constructed to vary in degree of emotional arousal and movement. Phobic levels were determined by the Fear Survey Schedule, the Speech Anxiety Questionnaire, and the Spider Fear Questionnaire. Both S groups did not differ on Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale scores. Heart rate, skin conductance, and ocular activity were recorded. Spider phobics rated all imagery contents as more vivid and reported more scene movement than speech anxious Ss. Both groups responded to their own fear scenes with higher ratings of emotion and a greater physiological response than to the other group's fear scenes. The arousal response of spider phobics to relevant fear scenes was greater than that of speech anxious Ss. The data suggest that the outcome of imagery-based therapies may be partly determined by type of fear. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear-relevant selective associations and covariation bias.

Three experiments used an illusory correlation paradigm to assess the effects of fear on the perception of the covariation between fear-relevant stimuli and shock. In Exp 1, high- and low-fear women were exposed to 72 trials during each of which a fear-relevant (snake or spider) or fear-irrelevant (mushroom and flower) slide was followed by a shock, a tone, or nothing. Although the relation between slide types and outcomes was random, high-fear subjects markedly overestimated the contingency between feared slides and shock. Exp 2 showed that this bias was due to the aversive, rather than more generally salient, features of shock. Low-fear subjects demonstrated biases equivalent to those of high-fear subjects only when the base rate of shock was increased from 33 to 50% in Exp 3. It is concluded that fear may be linked to biases that serve to confirm fear. The relevance of the present findings to preparedness theory is also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory correlation and social anxiety

An illusory correlation (IC) experiment examined the presence of a phobia-relevant covariation bias in the context of social anxiety. Low (n = 28) and high (n = 32) social anxious women were shown a series of slides comprising pictures of angry, happy and neutral faces which were randomly paired with either a shock, a siren or nothing. One half of the participants were shown women faces, whereas the other half were shown men faces. Participants indicated outcome expectancies on a trial by trial basis. After the experiment proper they estimated the contingencies of all slide/outcome combinations. Participants showed both an a priori and an a posteriori IC between angry faces and shock. This covariation bias was similar for men and women faces and independent of prior fear. The pattern of results is consistent with the idea that ICs arise from initial expectancies that survive extinction.     

Emotional imagery in simple and social phobia: Fear versus anxiety.

In a 1st study, 60 phobic volunteer Ss reacted psychophysiologically with greater vigor to imagery of their own phobic content than to other fearful or nonaffective images. Imagery heart rate responses were largest in Ss with multiple phobias. For simple (dental) phobics, cardiac reactivity was positively correlated with reports of imagery vividness and concordant with reports of affective distress; these relationships were not observed for social (speech) phobics. In a 2nd study, these phobic volunteers were shown to be similar on most measures to an outpatient clinically phobic sample. In an analysis of the combined samples, fearful and socially anxious subtypes were defined by questionnaires. Only the fearful subtype showed a significant covariation among physiological responses, imagery vividness, and severity of phobic disorder. This fearful–anxious distinction seems to cut across diagnostic categories, providing a heuristic perspective from which to view anxiety disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fear-relevant illusory correlations: What types of associations promote judgmental bias?

A. J. Tomarken, S. Mineka, and M. Cook (see record 1990-11527-001) found that high-fear individuals markedly overestimated the covariation between fear-relevant stimuli and aversive outcomes. The authors assessed what features of stimulus–outcome associations promote illusory correlations. In Experiment 1, participants with high snake fear exhibited significant covariation bias for slides of snakes and shocks, but not for slides of damaged electric outlets (DEOs) and shocks. In Experiment 2, individuals with high and low snake fear rated DEOs and shocks as belonging together better than snakes and shocks. However, the shapes of high-fear individuals' affective response profiles to snakes and shocks were more similar than their profile shapes involving other pairings. In addition, their affective responses to snakes and snake–shock profile similarity predicted snake–shock belongingness ratings. These results suggest the importance of emotional responses and emotional profile similarity in mediating illusory correlations involving fear-relevant stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies on the role of disgust in the acquisition and maintenance of specific phobias

Disgust has been proposed as a possible factor in phobic acquisition and maintenance, particularly in spider phobia. Cognitions and processes concerning disgust were examined in a series of studies with spider phobics, other specific phobics and nonphobic controls. Beliefs about the disgusting nature of their phobic objects were present in phobics but did not contribute to an attentional bias. Measures of global disgust sensitivity were not closely linked to the phobic fear response. The disgust associated with phobic objects appears to have different constituents to the disgust associated with objects that do not evoke the phobic response. In the light of evidence presented here, it seems unlikely that disgust plays a central role in the aetiology or maintenance of spider phobia in particular and specific phobias in general. It is proposed that when stimuli normally associated with disgust become the focus of phobic anxiety the disgust response may be amplified.     

Relative contributions of modeling, informational influences, and physical contact in extinction of phobic behavior.

Treated 1 member of a matched triad of adult snake phobics with a participant modeling procedure in which he received the benefits of modeling, verbal information, and direct contact with the feared object. 1 of the 2 other Ss, who observed the treatment, listened to the persuasive communications of E, thus receiving the joint benefits of modeling and verbal information. The 2nd O received only the benefits of modeling. Relative to an untreated control group, all treated Ss showed significant increases in approach behavior, reduction in approach-related fear, and positive changes in attitudes toward snakes. Between-condition analyses revealed that modeling accounted for the majority of the change variance, with direct contact contributing significant increments to approach behavior and fear reduction but not to attitude change. Verbal information made no significant contribution to the positive changes; in fact, indirect evidence indicated that it had a negative influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Eye Movements and Behavioral Responses to Threatening and Nonthreatening Stimuli During Visual Search in Phobic and Nonphobic Subjects.

Spider-phobic and nonphobic subjects searched for a feared/fear-relevant (spider) or neutral target (mushroom) presented in visual matrices of neutral objects (flowers). In half of the displays, the mushroom target was paired with a spider distractor, or a spider target was paired with a mushroom distractor. Although all subjects responded faster to the neutral target than to the feared/fear-relevant target, phobics were slower to respond than nonphobics when a mushroom target was presented with a spider distractor. Their eyes appeared to be drawn to the feared distractor before fixating neutral targets. A further experiment indicated no group differences when subjects merely judged the homogeneity of matrices. Thus, threat seems to capture the attention of phobics only when it is part of a background that subjects are explicitly instructed to ignore. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusory correlation and social categorization: Toward an integration of motivational and cognitive factors in stereotype formation.

Investigated the effect of group membership on the processes underlying the formation of group stereotypes. In two studies, Ss were randomly assigned to a majority group, a minority group, or neither group (control). Ss were then presented with 48 short statements in which other in-group and out-group members displayed disirable and undesirable behaviors, with either desirable or undesirable behaviors occurring more frequently. Across these items there was no correlation between group membership and desirability of behavior. In Study 1, measures of covariation perception showed that control Ss formed biased impressions of the group, consistent with a memory-based process of stereotype formation. Group members' perceptions showed little evidence of this bias. In Study 2, group members showed evidence of an in-group bias, with further evidence suggesting that these biased judgments were not dependent upon memory processes. Discussion focuses on the complexity of stereotyping processes introduced by social categorization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rapid acquisition of a novelty versus familiarity concept by pigeons (Columba livia).

Pigeons performed a successive discrimination task in which responding to novel slides was rewarded, and responding to familiar slides, seen once previously, was not rewarded. In Experiment 1, naive Ss initially responded more rapidly to familiar slides, but all Ss learned to respond more rapidly to novel slides within a few sessions. In Experiment 2, Ss transferred immediately to novel trial sequences. Experiment 3 showed that both increased retention intervals and interpolated slide presentations impaired recognition. Experiment 4 showed that Ss treated duplicate slides as familiar and confirmed that Ss were using a "novelty versus familiarity" concept. The authors conclude that such a concept is readily available to pigeons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategy selection in causal reasoning: When beliefs and covariation collide.

Investigated how people combine covariation information with pre-existing beliefs when evaluating causal hypotheses. Ss were 752 college students (aged 17–52 yrs). Three experiments, using both within- and between-Ss designs, found that the use of covariation information and beliefs interacted, such that the effects of covariation were larger when people assessed hypotheses about believable than about unbelievable causal candidates. In Exp 2, this interaction was observed when Ss made judgments in stages (e.g., first evaluating covariation information about a causal candidate and then evaluating the believability of a candidate), as well as when the information was presented simultaneously. Exp 3 demonstrated that this pattern was also reflected in Ss' metacognitive judgments: Ss indicated that they weighed covariation information more heavily for believable than unbelievable candidates. Finally, Exps 1 and 2 demonstrated the presence of individual differences in the use of covariation- and belief-based views. That is, individuals who tended to base their causality judgments primarily on belief were less likely to make use of covariation information and vice versa. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disgust and disgust sensitivity in blood-injection-injury and spider phobia

Blood-injection-injury (BII) phobics and spider phobics show markedly different cognitive, psychophysiological, and motoric reactions to activating stimuli. These observations have led theorists to question whether the emotion of fear mediates both phobias. The present study examined the role of disgust and disgust sensitivity in these subtypes of specific phobia. BII phobics, spider phobics, and nonphobics completed questionnaires and rated pictures of specific objects on fear and disgust scales. Questionnaire data indicated that phobic participants were higher than nonphobics on fear, and also on disgust sensitivity. The reaction of BII phobics to pictures of medical stimuli was one of disgust, rather than fear. The reaction of spider phobics to pictures of spiders was a combination of fear and disgust, though fear appeared to predominate. Results are discussed in view of current theories of emotional factors in specific phobia.     

Opioid antagonist affects behavioral effects of exposure in vivo.

Tested the hypothesis that endogenous opioids are involved in the extinction of phobic fear through exposure in vivo. 48 spider phobics participated in a 2-hr therapist-directed exposure in vivo treatment. 16 Ss were assigned to placebo, 16 to a low dose of naltrexone, and 16 to a high dose of naltrexone. Before intervention, after treatment, and at a 1-wk follow-up test, self-report, physiological, and behavioral measures of phobic fear were completed. At 1-wk follow-up, naltrexone was significantly related, in a dose-dependent way, to a greater relapse on avoidance measures but not on emotional, cognitive, and physiological measures. Endogenous opioids may be specifically involved in the extinction of avoidance behavior but not in the extinction of all aspects of phobic fear. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rumours greatly exaggerated: Allport and Postman's apocryphal study.

Assessed the potential impact of stereotypical information on memory, using 107 undergraduates. Ss saw a series of slides depicting a violent knifing incident between 2 men on the London Underground. Half were shown the altercation as occurring between 2 White men and half between a Black and a White man. In all cases, the critical slide in which the knife was presented showed it to be in the hand of the White man. After a distraction interval of 45 min Ss were given forced-choice recognition and recall tests. The latter required the Ss to write a brief account of the event while the former required Ss to choose between 2 slides. Results indicate that, when the recognition test preceded the recall test, Ss who had seen the slides with the Black and White protagonists were less accurate than those who had seen only White protagonists. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential hypnotic responsivity of smokers, phobics, chronic-pain control patients: A failure to confirm.

Examined the recent claims that hypnotic responsivity may be related to such presenting symptomatology as phobias or chronic pain. A retrospective analysis comparing the differential responsivity of 386 consecutive patients on the Hypnotic Induction Profile and Tellegen Absorption Scale was carried out. Ss were categorized as phobics (95), smokers (226), and chronic-pain sufferers (65). Phobic Ss were subclassified as monophobic (54) or polyphobic (41). No significant differences were found in hypnotic responsivity or the related capacity for absorption among patient categories. The importance of distinguishing between treatment responsivity and hypnotic responsivity is discussed. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Treatment of phobic disorders using cognitive and exposure methods: A self-efficacy analysis.

Examined predictions derived from self-efficacy theory in comparing the effects of exposure and cognitive interventions with simple phobics. 22 phobics (25–64 yrs) with fears of either heights, elevators, or darkness were assigned to either guided exposure (GE) or cognitive restructuring (CR) treatments. GE was found significantly superior to CR in enhancing approach behavior, increasing level and strength of self-efficacy, reducing subjective fear, and decreasing physiological reactivity to imagined phobic scenes. High correlations were found between approach behavior and self-efficacy ratings for both groups. GE produced marked improvements in Ss' ability to cope with phobic situations in daily life. CR induced reported improvements in social functioning. At a 1-mo follow-up the results remained much the same. Five additional sessions of GE were then offered to Ss in the CR condition, producing results comparable to those of the original GE group. At a 6-mo follow-up all gains were maintained with further reductions in subjective fear for all GE Ss. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)