tud
Indirect measures of associations and psychopathology: applications to Spider Phobia
2004-03-28
[Electronic ed.]
4519974-7
Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden
prv
Saechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden, Dresden
Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften, Psychologie, Institut für Allgemeine Psychologie, Biopsychologie und Methoden der Psychologie
To study of cognitive fear networks and associations, indirect experimental paradigms like the Implicit Association Test (IAT, Greenwald et al., 1998) or the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (EAST, De Houwer, 2003) may be helpful, as they promise to assess the structure of specific associations using a performance based approach without having to ask the participant for a verbal report. Three studies investigated the usefulness and characteristics of IAT and EAST. The aim of the first study was to measure fear associations towards spiders among spider phobic and non-phobic participants as well as in a group of spider enthusiasts. Results indicate that the IAT paradigm is sensitive to the strength of fear relevant associations and able to predict anxious behavior beyond the predictions of direct measures such as questionnaires. The second study focused on some of the mechanisms that underlie IAT effects. With a newly developed masked IAT, these experiments investigated the influences of individual stimuli and superordinate categories on IAT performance. Besides theoretical implications, the results also provide practical, relevant applications for the use of IAT experiments. A third study applied the EAST to investigate how different context conditions lead to differential activation of cognitive schemata in fear of spiders. One can conclude that the impact of automatic threat associations depends on the activated context, and that the EAST is suitable for the assessment of fear associations and their current activation level. This dissertation leads to the conclusion that the performance based methodology of the IAT and EAST is a useful and practical approach to reflect fear associations in phobia indirectly. At this point, the use of indirect measures is still at its beginning, and requires intensive methodological and theoretical efforts. These paradigms, however, may become useful for possible implications in psychopathology and other fields of psychology.
150
CU 3100
Angst, Assoziationsexperiment, Spinnen
Assoziationen, EAST, IAT, Impliziter Assoziationstest, Spinnenangst, indirekte Assoziationsmessung
EAST, Extrinsic Affective Simon Task, IAT, Implicit Association Test, indirect measures of associations, spider phobia
urn:nbn:de:swb:14-1083153631250-25218
111950783
Technische Universität Dresden
pbl
Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden
Thomas
Ellwart
aut
Thomas
Goschke
Prof. Dr.
dgs
rev
Mike
Rinck
PD Dr.
rev
Eni
Becker
Prof. Dr.
rev
eng
2004-01-22
2004-04-21
born digital
doctoral_thesis