Specific predictive power of automatic spider-related affective associations for controllable and uncontrollable fear responses toward spiders

Abstract

This study examined the predictive power of automatically activated spider-related affective associations for automatic and controllable fear responses. The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST; De Houwer, 2003) was used to indirectly assess automatic spider fear-related associations. The EAST and the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ) were used to predict fear responses in 48 female students from Maastricht University with varying levels of spider fear. Results showed that: (i) the EAST best predicted automatic fear responses, whereas (ii) the FSQ best predicted strategic avoidance behavior. These results suggest that indirect measures of automatic associations may have specific predictive power for automatic fear responses.

Introduction

According to cognitive models of anxiety, a biased interpretation of innocuous stimuli as threatening or dangerous is a core feature of the anxiety disorders (e.g., Beck & Clark, 1997). Following these models, anxiogenic stimuli are associated with unrealistic negative, harmful attributes and consequences. Until recently, most studies exclusively relied on explicit, self-report instruments to assess such associations. Obviously, self-report measures are limited by what the respondent is willing and able to disclose (e.g., Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Greenwald et al., 2002). Meanwhile, pertinent associations may not necessarily be accessible for conscious introspection, and individuals may dismiss certain initial associations as irrelevant when asked to verbalize personal, fear-related associations. This suggests that it would be important to complement self-report measures with indirect measures of automatic associations, which require neither verbalization nor introspection (cf. Fazio & Olson, 2003).

In line with this, recent information-processing models emphasize the importance of distinguishing between reflectively and more automatically initiated components of responding (Beck & Clark, 1997; Fazio & Towles-Schwen, 1999; Strack & Deutsch, 2004). For instance, Beck and Clark (1997) proposed that when a personally relevant negative stimulus is identified, a threat processing template is automatically activated. This template would guide automatically initiated responses on the basis of the initial threat impression. However, when sufficient resources are available, this automatic stage is argued to be followed by a more slow, effortful, though involuntary, secondary processing of the threat information. The secondary elaboration of threat information, in relation to current context, and available coping resources, would provide the opportunity to respond with more controlled fear behaviors. Following this, automatically initiated fear responses may diverge from more strategic, reflectively initiated fear responses. This is also in line with neurobiological evidence for the presence of separate pathways for initial, quick and dirty, lower order and slower higher order processing of stimulus information (e.g., LeDoux, 1995). This may also help to explain the observation that the various components of individuals’ fear responses (e.g., overt avoidance behavior and physiological responses) appear to be only loosely coupled (e.g., Lang, 1985).

It has been argued that automatically initiated fear responses may be best predicted by indirect measures of automatic fear-relevant associations, whereas more reflectively initiated fear responses may be best predicted by direct, self-report measures of fear (e.g., Egloff & Schmukle, 2002). That is, indirect measures of automatic associations leave little or no room for conscious reflection on a response. Responses will therefore primarily reflect automatically activated associations that are important to automatically initiated components of the fear response. Self-report instruments on the other hand do provide the opportunity to reflect on each response. Thus, individuals may strategically use additional coping/safety information on top of what was automatically activated to determine their response. Self-reported associations may thus be based on both automatically activated information as well as more reflective, secondary considerations (cf. Fazio & Olson, 2003). Following this line of reasoning, self-report measures and measures of automatic associations may each provide unique information concerning reflectively and automatically initiated fear responses, respectively.

In line with this idea, recent research suggests that direct and indirect measures of fear associations may, indeed, have differential predictive power (Asendorpf, Banse, & Mücke, 2002; Egloff & Schmukle, 2002; Spalding & Hardin, 1999). For instance, it was shown that explicit self-esteem had superior predictive validity with respect to self-rated anxiety during a self-relevant interview, whereas implicit self-esteem (measured with a priming task) was shown to have superior predictive power with respect to non-verbal, experimenter-rated, anxious behavior (Spalding & Hardin, 1999).

The present study was designed to further explore the idea that automatic and self-reported fear-related associations may have specific predictive validity for reflectively and automatically initiated fear responses. The focus was on fear of spiders because automatic processes are assumed to play a vital role in spider fear (e.g., Merckelbach, de Jong, Muris, & van den Hout, 1996). Relatedly, spider phobic individuals typically report to perceive a lack of intentional control over their initial fear reactions to spiders (e.g., Mayer, Merckelbach, & Muris, 2000). Accordingly, there seems a clear discrepancy between spider fearfuls’ reflective knowing that spiders are in fact harmless animals and their initial fear responses when confronted with spider-related stimuli. In fact, such a discrepancy is a prerequisite of the formal DSM diagnosis of specific phobias such as spider phobia (American Psychological Association, 2000). Following this, it might well be that automatically activated associations play a crucial role in eliciting spider phobics’ initial fear responses, whereas reflective considerations may be more important with respect to controllable fear-related (avoidance) behaviors. As such, fear of spiders seems to offer good potential for finding meaningful predictive differences between self-report measures and indirect measures of automatic associations. To test whether automatic spider-related affective associations may indeed have specific predictive power for automatically elicited fear responses, we assessed both relatively controllable and relatively spontaneous fear responses in a group of individuals with varying levels of spider fear. To index relatively controllable, reflectively initiated fear responding we employed the frequently used behavioral approach test (BAT: e.g., Lavy, van den Hout, & Arntz, 1993; de Jong, Visser, & Merckelbach, 1996; Öst, Stridh, & Wolf, 1998). As an index of an automatically initiated, reflexive fear response, we measured the magnitude of the eye blink startle response (SPR).

In sum, the present study tested whether an indirect measure of automatic associations (EAST) and a self-report measure (Fear of Spiders Questionnaire, FSQ) may specifically predict different types of fear responses. We hypothesized that if indirect measures of automatic associations have specific predictive power, the indirect measure would be the best predictor of fear potentiated SPR, whereas the self-report measure would superiorly predict BAT performance.