Associative learning in flying phobia

Background and objectives:Modern learning theories suggest that particularly strong associative learning contributes to the etiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders, thus explaining why some individuals develop an anxiety disorder after a frightening (conditioning) event, whereas others do not. However, associative learning has rarely been investigated experimentally in specific phobias. The current study investigated associative learning in patients with flying phobia and healthy controls using a modified version of Olson and Fazio’s associative learning paradigm (Olson & Fazio, 2001). Methods:Under the guise of an attention task, patients with flying phobia (n = 33), and healthy controls (n = 39) viewed a series of distracters interspersed with pairings of novel objects (counterbalancedconditioned stimuli, CSs) with frightening and pleasant stimuli (unconditioned stimuli, USs). Results:After the conditioning procedure patients with flying phobia rated both CSs more frightening and showed stronger discrimination between the CSs for valence compared to healthy controls. Conclusions:Our findings indicate a particularly stronger conditioning effect in flying phobia. These results contribute to the understanding of the etiology of specific phobia and may help to explain why only some individuals develop a flying phobia after an aversive event associated with flying.