Very Brief Counterconditioning versus Very Brief Exposure: Reducing Negative Evaluations of Spiders in Female University Students

Walsh-Doherty, Niamh (2025) Very Brief Counterconditioning versus Very Brief Exposure: Reducing Negative Evaluations of Spiders in Female University Students. Bachelor thesis, Psychology.

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Abstract

Specific phobias, such as spider fear, are often treated with exposure therapy; however, many individuals do not seek treatment due to the distress it causes. Previous research showed that masked exposure to spider stimuli effectively reduced fear responses in patients, but showed little change in subjective feelings towards spiders. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether masked counterconditioning using very brief exposure techniques (VBC) is more effective than masked exposure alone (VBE) in reducing negative emotional responses to spiders, and to explore whether VBE can be considered an effective intervention on its own. Female university students with high levels of spider fear (n = 152) were randomly assigned to VBC, VBE or a control condition (no exposure). Participants rated affective valence and disgust at three time points throughout the intervention and completed a mental behavioural approach task (Mental BAT) post-intervention. The results indicated that the decrease in negative valence or disgust ratings of the conditioned spider stimulus (CS) did not differ significantly between VBC and VBE. However, VBC resulted in noticeably lower disgust ratings than the control condition. Although VBE demonstrated somewhat higher Mental BAT scores than VBC, suggesting stronger approach tendencies, it did not substantially exceed the control condition. While the results did not support our hypothesis, a significant interaction effect between Time and Condition suggests that there may be some potential for masked counterconditioning to be an effective intervention in the future with further improvements. Keywords: spider phobia, masked exposure, counterconditioning, affective evaluation, avoidance

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor)
Supervisor name:	Masselman, I.
Degree programme:	Psychology
Differentiation route:	None [Bachelor Psychology]
Date Deposited:	23 Jul 2025 10:14
Last Modified:	23 Jul 2025 10:14
URI:	http://gmwpublic.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/5698

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