The Impact of Social Anxiety and Instruction on Avoidance, 2021-2022

This experiment examined the impact of social anxiety and instruction to not avoid on avoidance behaviour within a Pavlovian Conditioning paradigm. We measured skin conductance responses, expectancy ratings and avoidant behaviour during an associative threat learning and avoidance task. To assess social anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety, we administered the Social Phobia Inventory (SPIN) (Connor, Davidson, Churchill, Sherwood, Foa, & Weisler), The Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS) (Freeton, Rhéaume, Letarte, Dugas, & Ladouceur, 1994) and the trait version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg & Jacobs, 1968). The experimental task included four phases; threat acquisition, avoidance conditioning, avoidance test, and threat extinction. All participants completed all four phases. The study used a between subjects design and participants were allocated to one of two conditions: “instruction” and “control”. Participants in the instruction condition received the following instruction between the avoidance conditioning and avoidance test phases of the task: “Please press the non-avoidance button to test your expectancy whether an electrical stimulus and statement will occur”. At the same timepoint, the control group saw the following message “you may take a short break and continue when you are ready”. There were no other differences between the “instruction” and “control” conditions.