Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Germany.
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Germany.
J Anxiety Disord. 2021 Apr;79:102383. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2021.102383. Epub 2021 Mar 9.
Previous research has documented that fearful individuals avoid fear-relevant cues even if they incur costs in doing so. Paradigms that were previously used to study avoidance in the lab, manipulated reward contingencies in favor of selecting either fear-relevant or neutral cues, e.g., spiders versus butterflies. We, thus, developed a paradigm where the chance of monetary gains was linked with increasing probability of a fear-relevant or a neutral outcome. To this end, we modified the well-established Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) to include fear-relevant outcomes. Individuals with and without fear of spiders (N = 35) were offered the chance to inflate balloons, with more pumps resulting in larger gains. However, if the balloon exploded, this resulted in a loss of money - and at the same time in the presentation of a picture, either a fear-relevant spider or a neutral butterfly (emotional Balloon Analogue Risk Task; eBART). We operationalized risk aversion as the number of pumps and dysfunctionality of decision strategy as the amount of money that participants earned. In addition, decisional conflict was measured by response times for each decision. The data indicate, that spider-fearful individuals were generally more risk-averse and much more so in trials with fear-relevant stimuli as part of the negative outcome. Overall, this resulted in smaller amount of money that spider-fearful individuals earned compared to spider non-fearful individuals. Interestingly, spider-fearful compared to spider non-fearful individuals generally responded more hesitantly on all trials, and more so when they feared to encounter a spider. This research introduces a new paradigm and provides ecologically valid evidence for costly avoidance behavior in spider-fearful individuals. The eBART may be a promising new research tool to examine risk avoidance with emotionally relevant stimuli.
先前的研究记录表明，恐惧个体即使为此付出代价也会回避与恐惧相关的线索。先前用于实验室研究回避的范式操纵奖励偶然性，有利于选择与恐惧相关或中性的线索，例如蜘蛛与蝴蝶。因此，我们开发了一种范式，其中货币收益的机会与增加恐惧相关或中性结果的概率相关联。为此，我们修改了成熟的气球模拟风险任务（BART），以纳入恐惧相关的结果。有和没有蜘蛛恐惧的个体（N=35）有机会充气球，泵的次数越多，收益就越大。然而，如果气球爆炸，这会导致金钱损失-同时会呈现一张图片，要么是恐惧相关的蜘蛛，要么是中性的蝴蝶（情感气球模拟风险任务；eBART）。我们将风险厌恶定义为泵的数量，将决策策略的功能障碍定义为参与者赚取的金额。此外，通过每个决策的响应时间来衡量决策冲突。数据表明，蜘蛛恐惧个体通常更厌恶风险，在涉及恐惧相关刺激作为负面结果的试验中更是如此。总体而言，这导致蜘蛛恐惧个体比蜘蛛非恐惧个体赚取的金额更少。有趣的是，与蜘蛛非恐惧个体相比，蜘蛛恐惧个体在所有试验中普遍反应更犹豫，当他们害怕遇到蜘蛛时更是如此。这项研究引入了一种新的范式，并为蜘蛛恐惧个体的高代价回避行为提供了生态有效的证据。eBART 可能是一种有前途的新研究工具，可用于检查与情绪相关刺激相关的风险回避。
