Automatic processing in spider phobia: Implicit fear associations over the course of treatment.

Abstract

This study evaluates the cognitive model of anxiety by investigating treatment-related changes in automatic associations to evaluate schematic processing. Spider-phobic participants (n = 31) and healthy controls (n = 30) completed fear-based Implicit Association Tests (IATs), which are reaction-time measures that tap implicit associations without requiring conscious introspection. The specific tasks involved classifying pictures of snakes and spiders along with semantic categorizations (good vs.bad, afraid vs. unafraid, danger vs. safety, and disgusting vs. appealing). Phobic individuals were assessed before and after group-based exposure treatment and 2 months later, controls were assessed at matched time points. Results supported clinical applications for implicit fear associations, including prediction of phobic avoidance, and treatment sensitivity of the fear- and disgust-specific automatic associations.

Consumer persuasion: Indirect change and implicit balance

“…These findings are consistent with some prior research suggesting that automatic evaluations as measured by the IAT can sometimes change in response to advertisements (Czyzewska & Ginsburg, 2007;Maio et al, 2009;Park, Felix, & Lee, 2007) and other treatments involving verbal information (e.g., Petty et al, 2006;Teachman & Woody, 2003; see Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006, for a review). Although this research demonstrates that automatic evaluations can be influenced by traditional persuasive messages, it is unclear what the psychological processes were underlying the obtained effects, and whether those changes were consequential.…”

Pathways to change in one-session exposure with and without cognitive intervention: An exploratory study in spider phobia

“…These cognitions can also present themselves at an indirect, less accessible level of processing (Teachman, Gregg, & Woody, 2001;Teachman & Woody, 2003).…”

Implicit attitudes to smoking are associated with craving and dependence

“…In studies that use positive and negative as two concepts (as above), the IAT effect is assumed to capture an implicit attitude, which has been characterized as the automatic associations people have between an object and evaluation (good or bad) (Rudman, 2004). The IAT has been used to investigate associative memory in psychopathology (Gemar et al, 2001;Teachman et al, 2001;Teachman and Woody, 2003), including the addictions (e.g., Palfai and Ostafin, 2003;Wiers et al, 2002;Jajodia and Earleywine, 2003). There is substantial evidence for the reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the IAT (Cunningham et al, 2001).…”