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CHAPTER 5 134 Valence and pleasantness Valence ratings after the experimental task differed between A, B, and C, F (2,58) = 59.92, p < .001, η p 2 = .66. Stimulus B ( M = 78.80, SD = 17.08) was rated more positively than A ( M = 34.07, SD = 17.60), t (29) = 8.40, p < .001, d = 2.54, and C ( M = 37.80, SD = 16.32), t (29) = 8.43, p < .001, d = 2.46. A and C did not significantly differ, t < 1, which suggests that safety behavior did not affect evaluative conditioning. 2 Participants rated the US as unpleasant ( M = 19.53, SD = 11.98), and the safety behavior as pleasant ( M = 69.07, SD = 17.81). DISCUSSION We investigated whether extinguished fears can return as a result of safety behavior. Our main findings are twofold. First, in line with Vervliet and Indekeu’s (2015) findings, safety behavior did not diminish after the extinction of classically conditioned fear. Second, subsequent removal of safety behavior availability increased threat expectancy compared to the last extinction trial. Previous studies showed that safety behavior maintains pre-existing threat expectancy (Engelhard et al., 2015; Lovibond et al., 2009). The current findings and those of Vervliet and Indekeu (2015) add that safety behavior after fear extinction causes a partial return of threat expectancy. There are several potential explanations for our findings. First, Vervliet and Indekeu (2015) argued that residual threat expectancy may have motivated individuals to use safety behavior after fear extinction. In their study, threat expectancy and skin conductance responses remained higher for the CS+ than 2 Additionally, after the experimental task participants rated the safety of each CS on a 100 mm VAS from dangerous (left) to safe (right) with uncertain in the middle. The results for dangerous ratings showed a similar pattern to valence ratings: they differed between A, B, and C, F (2,58) = 85.33, p < .001, η p 2 = .75. B ( M = 89.67, SD = 12.43) was rated safer than A ( M = 42.30, SD = 23.54), t (29) = 10.05, p < .001, d = 2.52, and C ( M = 44.03, SD = 20.07), t (29) = 11.18, p < .001, d = 2.73. A and C did not significantly differ, t < 1.