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5 SAFETY BEHAVIOR AFTER EXTINCTION TRIGGERS A RETURN OF THREAT EXPECTANCY 131 higher threat expectancy for A and C than for B on the final trial of the Pavlovian acquisition phase, and extinction as threat expectancy ratings below 30 for A and C at the final Extinction phase trial (cf. Leer, Engelhard, Dibbets, & van den Hout, 2013). We used Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS; Version 24; IBM Corp, 2016) for the analyses. Data were analyzed with repeated measures ANOVAs (α = .05), comparing threat expectancy ratings between Stimuli (A vs. B vs. C), or Stimuli and Trials (e.g., final Extinction phase trial vs. Test phase). Corrected values were reported in case the assumption of sphericity was violated. Planned comparisons were conducted with paired t -tests, which were tested one-tailed when we had a specific prediction for the direction of the effect. RESULTS Participants Data of 15 participants were excluded from the analyses, 1 because 3 showed no fear acquisition, 11 showed no extinction, and 1 participant thought that the US would be audible from the computer’s internal speaker when the headphones were unplugged. This resulted in a final sample of 30 participants ( M age = 21.87, SD = 2.18; 25 women, 5 men). All participants used safety behavior on all six C*- trials in the Return of safety behavior phase. Excluded participants did not differ from included participants in state ( M included = 31.47, SD = 6.24) or trait anxiety ( M included = 35.27, SD = 8.99) scores, both t s < 1. 1 Results were comparable when all 45 participants were included in the analyses. The change in threat expectancy from the final Extinction phase trial to the Test phase differed between A, B, and C, F (2,88) = 4.08, p = .02, η p 2 = .09. Threat expectancy decreased for B, t (44) = 2.91, p = .006, d = 0.41, and did not significantly change for A, t (44) = 1.89, p = .07. However, it did not significantly change for C either, t (44) = 1.07, p = .15 (one-tailed).

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