The authors investigated the role of phobic responsivity in the generation
of phobia-relevant illusory correlations. As a means of disentangling the c
ontributions of prior fear and elicited fear responses, half of a group of
phobic women received 1 mg alprazolam (n = 21), and half received a placebo
(n = 22). A group of nonfearful women (n = 24) was included to control for
prior fear per se. Participants were exposed to slides of spiders, weapons
, and flowers that were randomly paired with a shock, a siren. or nothing.
Postexperimental covariation estimates and on-line outcome expectancies wer
e assessed. Irrespective of both prior and elicited fear, participants post
experimentally overassociated spiders and shock. Yet, only women with spide
r phobia displayed a persisting fear-confirming expectancy bias. This bias
was similar for the placebo and alprazolam groups. Thus. the bias appeared
to be due to preexisting phobogenic beliefs, whereas phobic responsivity pl
ayed a negligible role.