Flipbook

CHAPTER 7 168 approach manipulation, and was measured at various time points during exposure trials to control for its potential effects on fear. At the end of the experiment, pleasantness of the procedure was assessed to investigate whether this was affected by the approach manipulation. METHOD Participants Participants were recruited through posters, flyers, online advertisements on the University network, and during lectures. 454 students were screened for spider fearfulness using the Spider Anxiety Screening (SAS; Rinck et al., 2002; see Measures). Of the 206 individuals who scored 11 or higher, all 143 women (cf. Huijding & De Jong, 2006) who indicated willingness to participate were invited to participate, of whom 79 volunteered. Exclusion criteria were past or current psychiatric disorders other than spider phobia, uncorrected visual impairment, and use of medication that might alter attention, reaction time, memory, or concentration ( n = 0). If the distance between the participant and spider in an opened jar was less than 50 cm (step 6) in the initial behavioral approach test (BAT), the participant was excluded from further testing to ensure a sufficiently high level of spider fear at the start of the experiment and prevent a floor-effect on the BAT ( n = 3). This resulted in a final sample of 76 women (mean age 21.78; SD = 2.95) who participated in exchange for money or course credit after giving written informed consent. Measures Spider anxiety screening (“Spinnenangst screening”; SAS) The SAS (Rinck et al., 2002) is a four item (rated on a scale from 0 [does not apply at all] to 6 [completely applies]) self-report measure created and used for screening