Krypotos Angelos-Miltiadis, Mertens Gaëtan, Matziarli Despoina, Klugkist Irene, Engelhard Iris M
Department of Clinical Psychology, Utrecht University, Netherlands; Research group of Healthy Psychology, KU Leuven, Belgium.
Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, Netherlands.
Behav Res Ther. 2025 Jan;184:104649. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2024.104649. Epub 2024 Nov 26.
Panic disorder (PD) is a debilitating mental health condition, characterized by a preoccupation with the occurrence of panic attacks. Previous research has found that PD patients display increased fear generalization, which entails inflated fear responses to ambiguous stimuli (e.g., intermediate size circles) following fear conditioning wherein a neutral stimulus (e.g., large circle) gets paired with an aversive stimulus (e.g., electric shocks), whereas another neutral stimulus (e.g., small circle) is not paired with this aversive stimulus. The overgeneralization of fear to ambiguous stimuli may be a causal mechanism in the development of panic symptoms. However, this finding requires replication, particularly among subclinical groups to establish temporal priority of fear overgeneralization prior to the development of PD symptoms. This study examines whether fear generalization levels differ between individuals with high and low levels of some PD symptoms. Participants (N = 110) underwent fear conditioning and generalization, measuring physiological and self-report fear responses. Successful fear acquisition and generalization were observed. However, fear generalization did not significantly differ between groups with high and low PD symptomatology. These findings suggest that generalization observed in clinical populations might result from psychopathology rather than causing it. Using both clinical and subclinical samples in experimental psychopathology research is therefore important.
惊恐障碍（PD）是一种使人衰弱的心理健康状况，其特征是对惊恐发作的发生过度关注。先前的研究发现，惊恐障碍患者表现出恐惧泛化增加，这意味着在恐惧条件作用后，对模糊刺激（如中等大小的圆圈）的恐惧反应增强，在这种条件作用中，一个中性刺激（如大圆圈）与厌恶刺激（如电击）配对，而另一个中性刺激（如小圆圈）不与这种厌恶刺激配对。对模糊刺激的恐惧过度泛化可能是惊恐症状发展的一个因果机制。然而，这一发现需要重复验证，特别是在亚临床群体中，以确定在惊恐障碍症状出现之前恐惧过度泛化的时间优先级。本研究考察了具有高低不同程度惊恐障碍症状的个体之间恐惧泛化水平是否存在差异。参与者（N = 110）接受了恐惧条件作用和泛化测试，测量生理和自我报告的恐惧反应。观察到成功的恐惧习得和泛化。然而，具有高低不同程度惊恐障碍症状的组之间恐惧泛化没有显著差异。这些发现表明，在临床人群中观察到的泛化可能是精神病理学的结果而非其原因。因此，在实验性精神病理学研究中使用临床和亚临床样本都很重要。
