The Role of Safety Behaviors in the Pathogensis of Contamination Fear: An Experimental Investigation.

Preventative and restorative safety behaviors: Effects on exposure treatment outcomes and risk for future anxious symptoms

“…Consistent with hypotheses, we found that preventative, but not restorative, safety behaviors predicted an increase in both general (BAI) and specific anxious symptoms (anxious arousal) over time. These findings lend support to the etiological role of safety behaviors in the development of anxiety and are consistent with past studies that have found safety behaviors to increase anxiety (Deacon & Maack, ; Fawzy, ; Goodson et al., ; Olatunji, Etzel, Tomarken, Ciesielski, & Deacon, ). The results also support the possible differentiating role of safety behavior type for conferring risk for future depressive symptoms in nonclinical populations.…”

Safety behaviors were associated with greater anxious symptoms during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…People engage in these behaviors because they reduce anxiety in the short term, but research indicates that they are detrimental in the long term. A growing number of studies show that safety behavior use precedes and predicts increases in anxiety (Deacon & Maack, 2008; Fawzy, 2015; Goodson et al., 2016). This research indicates that the tendency to engage in high levels of safety behavior, regardless of their specific content (e.g., health, vigilance, interpersonal/social), may be a general underlying individual difference risk factor for anxiety that is not specific to the behaviors being used.…”