Thoughts of agoraphobic people during scary tasks
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 31, 2026

Using the Threat Probability Task to Assess Anxiety and Fear During Uncertain and Certain Threat
Published on: September 12, 2014
S L Williams1, P J Kinney, S T Harap
1Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015-3068, USA. SLW1@lehigh.edu
Abstract:
The authors examined the occurrence of theoretically derived patterns of thinking in 74 agoraphobic participants as they drove alone or tolerated an enclosed place. During the increasingly scary tasks in a behavioral test hierarchy, participants responded to a periodic beep by stating aloud what they were thinking at that moment, yielding more than 1,800 tape-recorded statements. Content analyses revealed that participants were mainly preoccupied with their current anxiety (expressed in 29% of the statements) and with their self-efficacy (15%). Despite participants' mounting feelings of anxiety, fewer than 1% of their statements expressed a thought of danger or an anticipation of future anxiety or panic. The rarity of danger thoughts poses an explanatory challenge for all cognitive theories of phobia and especially for the perceived danger theory of A. T. Beck (1976) and A. T. Beck, G. Emery, and R. L. Greenberg (1985).
Related Concept Videos
Preparedness and Phobias
Social Anxiety Disorder
Anxiety: Overview
Individuals with anxiety often experience a range of physical and emotional symptoms, including sweating, trembling, tachycardia, and disturbances in sleep patterns. These symptoms vary in intensity and frequency but are generally disruptive and distressing.
Panic Disorder
Coping Strategies: Problem Focused
For example, consider a student who struggles to understand their...
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

