Premium
Dot probe performance in two specific phobias
Author(s) -
Wenzel Amy,
Holt Craig S.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1348/014466599163006
Subject(s) - phobias , psychology , specific phobia , attentional bias , anxiety , cognitive psychology , anxiety disorder , psychiatry
Objectives. The present study applied MacLeod, Mathews & Tata's (1986) dot probe attentional deployment methodology to individuals with specific phobias. Design. Attentional deployment towards spider‐related, blood‐related, positive, negative, and neutral words was examined. Method. Individuals with either spider phobia ( N = 13) or blood/injury phobia ( N = 14) and non‐anxious controls ( N = 14) completed the dot probe attentional deployment task. Results. Individuals with specific phobias did not demonstrate an attentional bias towards phobia‐related stimuli relevant to their particular fears. Conclusion. Semantic‐based information processing paradigms may not be sufficiently potent to demonstrate biased performance towards threatening stimuli in individuals with mild specific phobias who are otherwise healthy.