ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives

Fear conditioning represents the prevailing model by which organisms acquire novel threat contingencies. However, little work has been devoted to linking laboratory measures of fear conditioning to the development of real-world threat responses. To fill this gap, the present study explored whether individual differences in a laboratory-based fear conditioning measure could predict levels of COVID-19-related anxiety and avoidance assessed during the first month of the pandemic.

Design and Method

Forty-eight undergraduate students who had previously participated in two fear conditioning experiments prior to COVID-19 completed a survey assessing COVID-19 anxiety and avoidance. The fear conditioning experiment involved learning to discriminate between a shape contingently associated with mild electric shock (CS+) and two other shapes that were not (CS-).

Results

Increased subjective anxiety to our laboratory CS+ prior to the pandemic predicted heightened COVID-19 anxiety. Follow-up analyses revealed that participants with high COVID-19 anxiety exhibited increased anxiety to CS+ during the final experimental block relative to participants with low COVID-19 anxiety.

Conclusions

Findings from this exploratory study tentatively implicate fear conditioning in the development of real-world fear responses and underscore the importance of investigating laboratory fear conditioning as a predictor of anxiety responses to real-world threats.

中文翻译：

---

COVID-19 前的恐惧条件反射可预测与 COVID-19 相关的焦虑：来自探索性研究的证据

摘要

背景和目标

恐惧条件反射代表了有机体获得新威胁突发事件的普遍模式。然而，很少有工作致力于将恐惧条件反射的实验室测量与现实世界威胁响应的发展联系起来。为了填补这一空白，本研究探讨了基于实验室的恐惧条件反射测量中的个体差异是否可以预测在大流行的第一个月评估的 COVID-19 相关焦虑和回避水平。

设计与方法

在 COVID-19 之前曾参加过两次恐惧条件反射实验的 48 名本科生完成了一项评估 COVID-19 焦虑和回避的调查。恐惧条件反射实验涉及学习区分与轻度电击（CS+）相关的​​形状和其他两种不相关的形状（CS-）。

结果

在大流行之前，我们实验室 CS+ 的主观焦虑增加预示着 COVID-19 焦虑增加。后续分析显示，与 COVID-19 低焦虑的参与者相比，在最后一个实验阶段，高 COVID-19 焦虑的参与者对 CS+ 的焦虑增加。

结论

这项探索性研究的结果初步暗示了恐惧条件反射与现实世界恐惧反应的发展有关，并强调了研究实验室恐惧条件反射作为对现实世界威胁的焦虑反应的预测因子的重要性。