Normative and Pathological Personality Predictors of Generalized Conditioned Fear, Instrumental Avoidance, and the Covariation of Generalized Fear and Avoidance

Abstract

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.