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3 DISCONFIRMING CONTAMINATION-RELATED THREAT BELIEFS 67 future exposures: the knowledge that one would re-contaminate oneself again after wiping may have made the SB irrelevant. An E+SB and an E+RP condition with high commitment to exposure were compared to an E+SB condition with low commitment to exposure. Participants signed a declaration stating that they would do their utmost best to finish the series of twenty exposure trials, because the data would otherwise be unusable (high commitment), or stating that they could quit at any moment, because finishing the experiment was not necessary for the usability of the data (low commitment). Contrary to the hypothesis, the effects of E+SB with a strong commitment to exposure were comparable to the effects of E+SB with a small commitment to exposure and to E+RP (van den Hout et al., 2012). Second, Levy and Radomsky (2016) argued that the beneficial effects of E+SB are due to the novelty of the SB: SB that has never been used before has not been associated with prevention or avoidance of feared outcomes, and may therefore not cause a misattribution of safety to the behavior. In their study, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and contamination fear received one exposure session to a contaminant without the use of SB (E+RP), with SB they routinely used, or with SB they had never used before. The three conditions showed comparable reductions in contamination fear on a behavioral approach test and on subjective anxiety ratings. Notably, exposure with never-used SB resulted in a greater reduction of self-reported contamination fear than exposure with routinely-used SB and E+RP. Third, Goetz and Lee (2015) showed that it is important to distinguish whether SB is aimed at preventing future distressing emotional responses or increases in anxiety, or performed to decrease the emotional experience in a feared situation (i.e., restorative), as is the case with cleaning yourself after touching a contaminating object. In their study, healthy participants repeatedly touched a contaminant without the use of SB (E+RP), with the use of preventive SB (e.g., holding a tissue while touching), or with the use of restorative SB (e.g., using hand sanitizer after touching). Exposure with restorative SB resulted in greater reductions in fear and behavioral avoidance than exposure with preventive SB and E+RP, and E+RP outperformed

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