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CHAPTER 2 54 Control condition, threat expectancy did not significantly differ between B and C, t < 1, whereas threat expectancy was higher for C than for B in the Subtle safety behavior condition, t (20) = 3.73, p = .001, d = 1.19 (see Figure 3, C- is similar to B- in the bottom panel, but C- is higher than B- in the middle panel). This again indicates that, on average, the Control condition resulted in a larger reduction of threat expectancy for stimulus C than the Subtle safety behavior condition. A closer look at the data, however, showed that threat expectancy ratings for C varied substantially between participants within the Subtle safety behavior condition ( SD = 47.53), and showed a dichotomous distribution (see Figure 4). This was not the case in the Full avoidance ( SD = 1.61) and Control condition ( SD = 6.14). In the Subtle safety behavior condition, threat expectancy for C had decreased for approximately half of the participants ( n = 11), whereas for approximately the other half of the participants, it had persisted ( n = 9), or had become ambiguous ( n = 1). State and trait anxiety scores did not differ between participants within the Subtle safety behavior condition whose threat expectancy had, and had not, decreased, t s < 1. Figure 4. Distribution of threat expectancy ratings for C in the Test phase for the Subtle safety behavior condition in Experiment 2 ( n = 21). 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 20 40 60 80 100 Frequency Threat expectancy

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