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2 DO SAFETY BEHAVIORS PRESERVE THREAT BELIEFS? 41 Table 1. Design of the experimental task in Experiment 1. Phase Pavlovian acquisition Safety behavior acquisition Extinction Test Full avoidance condition A+ (3) B- (6) C+ (3) A*(+) (4) A~[+] (4) A+ (1) B- (2) C+ (1) A+ (2) B- (2) C*- (6) A+ (1) B- (1) C- (1) Control condition A+ (2) B- (2) C- (6) Note. A, B, and C refer to visual stimuli (CS); + and – refer to presence and absence, respectively, of the loud noise (US) following the CS; * indicates the availability of the full avoidance response (i.e., unplugging the headphones); ~ indicates the availability of subtle safety behavior (i.e., taking off the headphones); (+) indicates that participants only heard the US if they made the full avoidance response (i.e., if they did not unplug the headphones); [+] indicates that the US was less loud for participants if they used subtle safety behavior (i.e., if they took off the headphones); numbers in parentheses indicate the number of trials of each type. From the Extinction phase onwards, C was no longer followed by the loud noise. During the Extinction phase, the full avoidance response was available during unreinforced C presentations for participants in the Full avoidance condition, but not for participants in the Control condition. Finally, in the Test phase, A, B, and C were presented once without the availability of full avoidance or subtle safety behavior. The order of trial types was randomized within each phase, with the restriction that there were no more than two consecutive trials of the same type. Furthermore, C was always presented last in the Test phase to prevent that the nonoccurrence of the US at this trial would affect the response to stimuli A and B (cf. Lovibond et al., 2009).