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Updated: May 21, 2026
09:00
Investigating Pain-Related Avoidance Behavior using a Robotic Arm-Reaching Paradigm
Published on: October 3, 2020
Behavior as information: "If I avoid, then there must be a danger".
Amelia Gangemi1, Francesco Mancini, Marcel van den Hout
1Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, University of Messina, Via Concezione, 6/8, 98121 Messina, Italy. gangemia@unime.it
Summary
Anxious individuals infer danger from their safety behaviors, unlike controls who rely on objective information. This tendency may maintain anxiety disorders.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive psychology
- Clinical psychology
- Psychopathology
Background:
- Cognitive models of anxiety disorders highlight the role of safety-seeking behaviors in maintaining irrational fear.
- Safety behaviors may reinforce maladaptive beliefs by being interpreted as evidence of danger.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if anxious individuals infer danger from safety behaviors, contrasting with objective danger cues.
- To compare this inference process between anxious participants and non-clinical controls.
Main Methods:
- Three groups of anxiety disorder patients (OCD, panic, social phobia) and a non-clinical control group rated perceived danger in varied scripts.
- Scripts manipulated objective safety/danger information and the presence/absence of safety behaviors.
Main Results:
- Anxious participants were influenced by both objective danger and safety behavior information.
- Non-clinical controls primarily relied on objective danger, showing less influence from safety behaviors.
- This effect was specific to social phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Conclusions:
- The tendency to infer danger from safety behaviors may contribute to the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders.
- This finding supports cognitive models emphasizing the role of safety behaviors in psychopathology.
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