Far from the threatening crowd: Generalisation of conditioned threat expectancy and fear in COVID-19 lockdown.

ABSTRACT: Fear and anxiety are rarely confined to specific stimuli or situations. In fear generalisation, there is a spread of fear responses elicited by physically dissimilar generalisation stimuli (GS) along a continuum between danger and safety. The current study investigated fear generalisation with a novel online task using COVID-19-relevant stimuli (i.e., busy or quiet shopping street/mall scenes) during pandemic lockdown restrictions in the United Kingdom. Participants (N = 50) first completed clinically relevant trait measures before commencing a habituation phase, where two conditioned stimuli (CSs; i.e., a busy or quiet high street/mall scene) were presented. Participants then underwent fear conditioning where one conditioned stimulus (CS+) was followed by an aversive unconditioned stimulu

SUBMITTER: Dymond S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11408548 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature