Browsing by Subject "fear conditioning"

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    Normative and Pathological Personality Predictors of Generalized Conditioned Fear, Instrumental Avoidance, and the Covariation of Generalized Fear and Avoidance
    (2019-08) Cooper, Samuel
    Mechanistic conditioning models of human anxiety pathology have established overgeneralization of classically conditioned fear as a maladaptive correlate of clinical anxiety (e.g., anxiety disorders). These models have also, until recently, largely discounted the pathological contribution of instrumental avoidance of feared stimuli. This is in stark contrast to clinically-based models of anxiety pathology, which establish that the most severe forms of clinical anxiety involve excessive avoidance that results in loss of valued activity and opportunity to extinguish fear, and links this avoidance to individual differences in a variety of personality traits. Recent mechanistic work has partially addressed this gap and investigated the relationship between generalized fear and generalized avoidance, but has largely not incorporated individual difference variables. The current investigation furthers the merging of mechanistic conditioning and clinical models in this area by testing how broadband individual differences (e.g., personality traits) ranging from normative to pathological can improve prediction of instrumental avoidance from generalized fear. Candidate personality variables include those related to Conscientiousness and Extraversion, both traits that are linked to learning and approach systems. The method for this investigation involved lab-based assessment using established conditioning paradigms with behavioral and psychophysiological indicators, as well as multidimensional self-report inventories and a multilevel modeling analytic approach to facilitate more precise testing of personality-related hypotheses. Results indicate that 1) multiple measures of pathological negative affect are related to increased fear generalization and facilitate a maladaptive fear-avoidance relations; 2) Extraversion-related variables generally buffer against fear-avoidance covariation, whereas pathologically low Extraversion (detachment) facilitates the fear-avoidance relation; 3) Conscientiousness-related variables both facilitate and inhibit the fear-avoidance relation, depending on context; and 4) the relationship between the personality variables, generalized fear, and avoidance depends partially on how the fear metric is operationalized (e.g., physiologically or behaviorally). These results are discussed within a framework of improving methodology for future investigations that combine conditioning and individual differences approaches and, eventually, using this type of work to inform translational efforts to further refine and personalize treatments for anxiety and trauma-related psychopathology.
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    Reward Motivation as a Moderator of Maladaptive Fear/Avoidance Relations during Decision-Making
    (2024-06) Emich, Abigail
    Overgeneralization of conditioned fear is a key facet of clinical anxiety, which occurs when fear spreads to safe stimuli resembling learned danger cues. When individuals are confronted with competing motivations (e.g., avoid perceived threats or approach rewards), overgeneralization can drive maladaptive avoidance of safe stimuli at the expense of rewards and valued life goals. Only a few studies have examined moderators of the relationship between overgeneralized fear and maladaptive avoidance (i.e., aversive Pavlovian-instrumental covariation during generalization, or APIC-G), and no studies have examined individual differences in reward motivation as a potential moderator. The current study fills this gap in the literature. 123 participants with and without various anxiety-related disorders completed a validated fear generalization task in which they could avoid the risk of shock at the cost of poorer task performance. The task measured both fear generalization and self-reported desire to win while functional magnetic resonance imaging was obtained. Fear generalization was measured using multiple methods, including changes in activation in neural regions of interest. Hierarchical linear regressions revealed that win motivation significantly moderated the relationship between various indices of fear generalization and subsequent maladaptive behavioral avoidance. This interaction was statistically significant when fear generalization indexed by left anterior insula activation (standardized β = -.22, p = .018), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex activation (standardized β = -.18, p = .030), shock expectancy ratings (standardized β = -.19, p = .011), and retrospective anxiety ratings (standardized β = -.16, p = .007). In this way, greater win motivation was associated with weaker associations between fear generalization and maladaptive avoidance. Key implications for this work include the possibility that individuals higher in reward motivation are less likely to maladaptively avoid due to overgeneralized fear, which could make them less vulnerable to the development of clinical anxiety or more likely to respond to treatment.