اثر حواس پرتی بر روی کاهش اضطراب داخل جلسه در طول مواجهه با ترس ناشی از تزریق خفیف کوتاه در داخل بدن

The present study examined the effects of attentional focus on anxiety reduction during in vivo exposure. Thirty-nine mildly blood- and injection-fearful subjects were randomly assigned to one of three brief (i.e., 10 minute) exposure conditions. Cognitive attention to the blood-and-injection stimuli was manipulated by engaging participants in either stimulus-relevant conversation (exposure-plus-focusing condition), stimulus-irrelevant conversation (exposure-plus-distraction condition), or no conversation (exposure alone). Attention was successfully manipulated, and while exposure-plus-distraction resulted in a greater decrease in anxiety within-session than both the exposure-plus-focusing and exposure-alone conditions, the three groups showed no difference at postexposure in the behavioral approach task. Implications for the practice of exposure techniques and theories of emotional processing are discussed.