Pre-COVID-19 fear conditioning responses predict COVID-19-related anxiety: evidence from an exploratory study.
Anxiety Stress Coping
; 35(5): 547-556, 2022 09.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1671914
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:
Fear conditioning represents the prevailing model by which organisms acquire novel threat contingencies. However, little work has been devoted to linking laboratory measures of fear conditioning to the development of real-world threat responses. To fill this gap, the present study explored whether individual differences in a laboratory-based fear conditioning measure could predict levels of COVID-19-related anxiety and avoidance assessed during the first month of the pandemic. DESIGN ANDMETHOD:
Forty-eight undergraduate students who had previously participated in two fear conditioning experiments prior to COVID-19 completed a survey assessing COVID-19 anxiety and avoidance. The fear conditioning experiment involved learning to discriminate between a shape contingently associated with mild electric shock (CS+) and two other shapes that were not (CS-).RESULTS:
Increased subjective anxiety to our laboratory CS+ prior to the pandemic predicted heightened COVID-19 anxiety. Follow-up analyses revealed that participants with high COVID-19 anxiety exhibited increased anxiety to CS+ during the final experimental block relative to participants with low COVID-19 anxiety.CONCLUSIONS:
Findings from this exploratory study tentatively implicate fear conditioning in the development of real-world fear responses and underscore the importance of investigating laboratory fear conditioning as a predictor of anxiety responses to real-world threats.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Conditioning, Classical
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Anxiety Stress Coping
Journal subject:
Behavioral Sciences
/
Psychology
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
10615806.2022.2033735
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS