Situation-Specific Scripts for Threat in Two Specific Phobias

Abstract

The present study applied a script methodology from cognitive psychology to investigate schema content for threat in samples of individuals with spider phobia (n = 17), individuals with blood/injury phobia (n = 17), and nonanxious individuals (n = 30). Participants listed prototypical sequences of events, or scripts, that most people experience in threatening situations involving spiders or blood. Phobic participants generally listed similar events as nonanxious participants, although some deviant events characterized the aggregated script for the blood situation composed by spider phobics and the aggregated script for the spider situation composed by blood/injury phobics. Scripts for the scenario that corresponded to phobic participants' primary domain of fear reflected more discomfort than scripts composed by individuals in the other two groups. The results generally suggest that individuals with specific phobias have normative knowledge for feared situations, although underlying phobia proneness may facilitate the reporting of deviant schema content and affective tone in mildly threatening situations.