Three illusory correlation experiments were conducted to determine whe
ther a fear-relevant covariation bias (Tomarken, Mineka & Cook, 1989,
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 381-394) could be demonstrated usi
ng different types of fear-relevant stimuli from the blood-injury phob
ia category. In each experiment, women high and low on blood-injury fe
ar were presented with fear-relevant slides depicting blood or injury,
as well as slides from two neutral categories. A shock (aversive outc
ome), or a tone or no outcome (neutral outcomes) followed each of the
72 slides. Although the relationship between slide types and outcomes
was random, subjects in all three experiments overestimated the co-occ
urrence of shock and blood-injury slides relative to all other slide-o
utcome combinations. However, there was no significant effect of blood
-injury fear on this bias, indicating that, regardless of their blood-
injury fear level, humans show an associative bias to selectively asso
ciate blood-injury stimuli with aversive outcomes. Copyright (C) 1997
Elsevier Science Ltd