To Approach or to Avoid: The Role of Ambivalent Motivation in Attentional Biases to Threat and Spider Fear
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Date
2021-01-03
Authors
Xu, Mengran
Rowe, Katelyn
Purdon, Christine
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer
Abstract
Background People with anxiety difficulties show different patterns in their deployment of attention to threat compared
to people without anxiety difficulties. These attentional biases are assumed to play a critical role in the development and
persistence of anxiety. However, little is known about factors that influence attentional biases to threat. An emerging body
of evidence suggests that visual attention to threat varies across the time course according to one’s motivation to approach
vs. avoid threat.
Methods In order to better understand the relationship between motivation, attentional biases to threat, and anxiety, we had
participants high in spider fear complete a sustained-attention task in full view of a live tarantula while their eye movements
were tracked.
Results Participants who were ambivalent about whether to look at the spider or to avoid looking exhibited a unique pattern
of visual attention to the spider, and reported higher spider fear and more negative affect than did other participants at the
end of the study.
Conclusions Our findings suggest that anxiety persistence may have more to do with goal prioritization than innate attentional
biases. Future studies of attentional biases to threat should take motivation into account and study attention across the time
course. Ambivalent motivation to threat should also be targeted in exposure therapy.
Description
This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Cognitive Therapy and Research. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10193-2
Keywords
attentional bias to threat, approach-avoidance conflict, ambivalent motivation, spider fear, spider anxiety