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5 SAFETY BEHAVIOR AFTER EXTINCTION TRIGGERS A RETURN OF THREAT EXPECTANCY 137 to the threat signaling properties of a cue that indicated the availability of safety behavior (i.e., the green plug). After the experimental task, A and C (the two CS+) were rated comparably negative, which indicates that safety behavior did not affect evaluative conditioning. The finding that stimulus B (the CS-) was still rated more positively than A and C after the experimental task suggests that evaluative conditioning was resistant to fear extinction, which is in line with previous findings (e.g., Engelhard, Leer, Lange, & Olatunji, 2014). Negative valence is related to behavioral avoidance tendencies (Rinck & Becker, 2007), and activates avoidance behavior (Krieglmeyer, Deutsch, De Houwer, & De Raedt, 2010). Future research should investigate whether negative valence motivates safety behavior use after fear extinction, and whether changing negative valence (e.g., via counterconditioning; Engelhard et al., 2014) can enhance the extinction of safety behavior and can prevent the return of threat expectancy. Operant conditioning research indicates ways in which instrumentally conditioned behavior may be extinguished (Bouton, 2016). First, behavior decreases when it is associated with negative consequences. In a recent study by Rattel, Miedl, Blechert, and Wilhelm (2016), avoidance decreased when it was associated with cost for participants (i.e., they had to take a lengthy detour to avoid a potential shock). Avoidance and safety behaviors are often costly for patients with anxiety disorders. Among other things, these behaviors can make patients miss out on the positive consequences of approach behavior and impede achieving aspired goals. Future studies may investigate whether safety behavior in the current paradigm can be extinguished by introducing negative consequences for the behavior, for example, by presenting an aversive stimulus (e.g., mild electrical stimulation) when participants use safety behavior after fear extinction. In addition to increasing the negative consequences of safety behavior, rewarding approach behavior decreases avoidance (Bublatzky, Alpers, & Pittig, 2017; Pittig, Brand, Pawlikowski, & Alpers, 2014). Hence, introducing a reward for not using safety behavior after fear extinction may extinguish safety behavior in the current paradigm. Finally, safety behavior may