Implicit associations for fear-relevant stimuli among individuals with snake and spider fears

This study investigated an implicit measure of cognitive processing, the Im plicit Association Test (IAT; A. G. Greenwald, D. E. McGhee, & J. L. K. Sch wartz, 1998), as a measure of fear-related automatic associations. Sixty-se ven students with snake or spider fears completed 4 IAT tasks in which they classified pictures of snakes and spiders along with descriptive words ind icating valence, fear, danger, or disgust. Results indicated that all 4 tas ks discriminated between fear groups in terms of their implicit association s, and fear-specific effects were significant even after controlling for th e impact of valence evaluation. Findings are discussed in terms of applicat ions of the IAT methodology to examine cognitive processing and schemata in anxiety and potential uses for assessing anxiety disorders.