Dymond, Simon and Schlund, Michael W. and Roche, Bryan and Whelan, Robert
(2014)
The spread of fear: Symbolic generalization mediates
graded threat-avoidance in specific phobia.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67 (2).
pp. 247-259.
ISSN 1747-0226
Abstract
Overgeneralization of fear and threat-avoidance represents a formidable barrier to successful clinical
treatment of anxiety disorders. While stimulus generalization along quantifiable physical dimensions
has been studied extensively, less consideration has been given to symbolic generalization, in which
stimuli are indirectly and arbitrarily related. The present study examined whether the magnitude and
extent of symbolic generalization of threat-avoidance and threat-beliefs differed between spiderphobic
and nonphobic individuals. Initially, participants learned two sets of stimulus equivalence
relations (A1 = B1 = C1; A2 = B2 = C2). Next, one cue (B1) was established as a conditioned stimulus
(CS + ; threat) that signalled onset of spider images and prompted avoidance, and another cue (B2)
was established as a CS– (safety cue) that signalled the absence of such images. Subsequent testing
showed that phobics compared to nonphobics exhibited greater symbolic generalization of threatavoidance
to threat cues A1 and C1 (indirect CS+ threat cues related via symmetry and equivalence,
respectively), while all individuals showed nonavoidance to indirect safety cues A2 and C2. The
enhanced symbolic generalization of threat-beliefs and avoidance behaviour observed in spider
phobics warrants further investigation.
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