Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
The relative contributions of fear and disgust reductions to improvements in spider phobia following exposure-based treatment
Research highlights
► Exposure-based treatment associated with significant improvements in spider phobia. ► Exposure-based treatment associated with significant improvements in fear and disgust reactions to a live spider. ► Changes over time in fear and disgust during treatment each explained unique variance in improvement in spider phobia. ► Changes in fear and disgust are important to reductions in spider phobia during exposure-based treatment.
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were 61 treatment-seeking spider fearful individuals that were recruited through community advertisements. Participants responded to advertisements indicating the availability of free treatment for spider phobia for those willing to participate in scientific research.
Spider phobia severity
The Spider Phobia Questionnaire-Revised (SPQ-R: Klorman, Hastings, Weerts, Melamed, & Lang, 1974; modified by Olatunji, Woods, et al., 2009) is a 15-item true/false measure of phobic responding to spiders. The SPQ-R is
Participant characteristics
Participants were predominantly female (81.7%) which is consistent with prior findings (Fredrikson, Annas, Fischer, & Wik, 1996) showing that more females have spider phobia that males, with a mean age of 34 years (SD = 11.1; range 19–77). The mean score on the SPQ-R was 10.67 (SD = 1.79, range = 6–14), which is comparable to that of other exposure treatment studies that have utilized a more formal diagnostic assessment procedure (e.g., Olatunji, Woods, et al., 2009; M = 10.31, SD = 2.39).
Discussion
There remains a paucity of empirical work examining how fear and disgust operate during exposure-based treatment for spider phobia. The present study examined whether changes in state fear and disgust emotions uniquely mediate changes in self-reported trait symptoms of spider phobia during an exposure-based treatment. Consistent with previous research (i.e., Smits et al., 2002), the present study revealed that a one-session exposure in vivo treatment resulted in significant improvements in BAT
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2020, Journal of Anxiety DisordersCitation Excerpt :This finding is consistent with previous research that has examined the relative contributions of changes in fear and disgust emotions to improvements in other phobias that are characterized by excessive disgust proneness. For example, Olatunji, Huijding, de Jong, and Smits (2011) examined treatment-seeking spider fearful individuals that underwent a one-session in vivo exposure treatment. Growth curve analyses showed that treatment was associated with significant improvements in fear and disgust reactions to a live spider and self-reported spider phobia symptoms.
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2019, Behaviour Research and TherapyCitation Excerpt :Behavioral Approach Task (BAT). A tarantula BAT inspired by spider-related BATs used in previous research (e.g., Olatunji, Huijding, De Jong, & Smits, 2011) served as the behavioral outcome. The BAT included 13 rank-ordered steps ranging from standing at the opposite end of a room from a tarantula in a covered terrarium to allowing the tarantula to crawl up one's bare arm.
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2017, International Journal of PsychophysiologyCitation Excerpt :Fourth, fear of spiders involves also disgust, not only fear (Cisler et al., 2009). Although exposure-based treatments are effective in reducing spider fear (Olatunji et al., 2011), it is unclear whether our results would replicate in other phobic fears. Finally, we did not conduct a follow-up study, and thus were unable to test whether these associations would remain significant over time.