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CHAPTER 6 156 et al., 1995), physiological response (Ehlers et al., 1988; Valins & Ray, 1967), overt safety behavior (Gangemi et al., 2012; van den Hout et al., 2014), and approach behavior (this study) may have altered the meaning information in the fear network. Although it will not be easy to derive and test competing hypotheses from Festinger's and Lang's positions, pathological anxiety is such a severe clinical and societal problem that efforts to solve this explanatory issue are warranted. ERP derives its positive effects from extinction: learning that the previously avoided (phobic) stimulus is not followed by feared outcomes (Vervliet, Craske, & Hermans, 2013). Intrinsically, ERP involves approach behavior. The current data suggest that for spider fearful individuals, apart from extinction, ERP may yield its positive clinical effects in part from the very act of approaching. Our findings are limited to spider fearful individuals and spider scenarios. Whether patients with anxiety disorders also show a tendency to infer safety from approach behavior is an empirical issue that needs testing. Moreover, the current data were collected in a non-clinical student sample. The spider fearful group was, on average, less fearful than a clinical sample. Still, there is no a priori reason to suppose that the effects are absent in clinical groups. Compared to non-patients, anxiety patients are more prone to make danger estimations based on response information (Arntz et al., 1995; Engelhard et al., 2001; Gangemi et al., 2012; van den Hout et al., 2014). Furthermore, we adapted the vignette method developed by Arntz et al. (1995) and used by Engelhard et al. (2001; 2002), Gangemi et al. (2012), Lommen et al. (2013), Verwoerd et al. (2013), and van den Hout et al. (2014). This method assumes that danger ratings of a scenario in which someone else is the key character reflect how danger evaluations are made about oneself in real life. Research is needed that investigates whether patients with anxiety disorders will infer safety from approach behavior in real life situations. We found a situation-specific approach behavior as information effect: spider fearful participants inferred safety from approach behavior in spider scenarios, but not in general scenarios. Gangemi et al. (2012) found that patients with obsessive-