Identifying danger and anxiety expectancies as components of common fears

The hypothesis was the common fears can be analyzed into separate factors for danger and anxiety expectancies. Six scales were constructed to measure danger and anxiety expectancies for the fears of flying, heights, and public speaking. The internal reliabilities of the scales were assessed in Study 1. The unreliable items were then deleted, and the revised scales were assessed in Study 2. The revised scales were found to have a satisfactory degree of internal consistency and test/retest reliability. For each fear, the items of the danger and anxiety expectancy scales were pooled and then submitted to a factor analysis. The danger and anxiety expectancy scales formed separate factors for each fear. The results were near-perfect; 51 of 53 items had factor loadings that were consistent with the distinction between danger and anxiety expectancies. It also was found that danger and anxiety expectancies are specific for each fear; that is, a person can have one fear that is danger-based and another that is anxiety-based. The findings have implications for understanding fears. Future research is suggested to test Reiss and McNally's (1985) hypothesis that desensitization might be more effective than credible placebo in the treatment of danger-based fear but that both desensitization and credible placebo are about equally effective in the treatment of anxiety-based fear.