| Abstract: | In a study with 63 female and 7 male spider-phobic undergraduates, 3 types of therapy (imaginal desensitization, videotaped therapy with narratives and relaxation instructions, and videotaped therapy alone) were combined with 2 types of scenes (scenes depicting individuals interacting with spiders and scenes depicting only the spiders). Ss were assigned to 1 of the 6 treatment conditions or to an untreated control group. Behavioral and self-report measures were collected before and after the 4-wk treatment period. On the behavioral measure, all but one of the treatment groups differed significantly from the control group; the exception was the videotaped-therapy-only group, which viewed spider-only scenes. In general, the following conclusions are drawn: (a) Desensitization and modeling therapies were equally effective. (b) Modeling alone was more effective than mere exposure to the phobic object. (c) Therapies that included components that might serve as reciprocal inhibitors of Ss' fears were equally effective, regardless of the type of scene they used. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
