What's the fear of? Using implosion to explore the bodily-injury fear complex

The present study utilized implosive therapy scenes to assess fear reactions to cues hypothesized to be instrumental in the development and maintenance of bodily-injury phobia. In addition to a bodily mutilation stimulus, the cue areas targeted were loss of control and death fears. Twenty-six high-fear subjects and 24 low-fear subjects rated their fear while imagining that they were the woman depicted in four audiotaped scenes. A repeated measures analysis of variance detected significant group differences for the fear ratings, with the high-fear group reporting more fear than the low-fear group. Also, the high-fear group's skin conductance response amplitudes averaged across the four scenes were significantly higher than those of the low-fear group. Finally, the high-fear group's more pathological questionnaire scores were significantly different from the low-fear group's for both the Self-Control Schedule and the Lester Attitude Toward Death Scale. This study is the first to assess various components of bodily injury fear through the use of imagery while measuring across two response-modes.