| Popis: |
Safety behaviour in anxiety disorders is often maladaptive given it prevents patients to disconfirm unrealistic threat beliefs (protection from extinction). These behaviours range from mild to excessive, however, are commonly examined as binary responses. The current study aimed to validate a dimensional measure of safety behaviour. After acquiring differential conditioned fear to a warning cue (CS+) and a safety cue (CS-), participants acquired dimensional safety behaviour that had a negative linear relationship with the admission of an aversive outcome (0-100% omission). Next, a Reward group received a fixed (Experiment 1) or an individually calibrated monetary incentive (Experiment 2) for non-avoidance while a Control group received no incentive. Overall, the paradigm replicated well-established effects. Intensity of safety behaviour strongly aligned with threat expectancy. The Reward group showed less frequent safety behaviour which initiated extinction learning to CS+. Surprisingly, no group differences in protection from extinction were observed. Post-hoc analyses revealed that overall group differences were biased by some high avoiders in the Reward group who constantly engaged in safety behaviour. Novel findings revealed that despite similar conditioned fear to CS-, the Control group showed stronger safety behaviour to it. This suggests that other processes besides fear are involved in low-cost avoidance |
