One Session of Flooding as Treatment for Conditioned Avoidance Responding in Humans: Effect of Individualization of Treatment Duration

Abstract

An avoidance response was conditioned to three stimuli (tone, vibrator, and light) presented in serial order. Following conditioning, each group of subjects underwent a different treatment procedure. Group 1 received a completely individualized flooding procedure distributed over multiple trials. Duration of the conditioned stimulus presentations was individualized by making them contingent upon termination of conditioned suppression, and duration of the treatment session by termination of conditioned avoidance. The Group 2 flooding procedure was completely non-individualized, massed into one trial and yoked to Group 1 to control for the amount of exposure to each of the conditioned stimuli and the duration of treatment sessions. Group 3 experienced non-individualized duration of treatment, individualized conditioned stimulus presentations distributed over trials and controlled for the duration of the treatment session and the distribution of trials. Analysis indicated that individualized duration of the flooding session utilizing a measure of anxiety dissipation significantly hastened the extinction of avoidance responses. Implications for the effective practice of implosive therapy were discussed.