title: Fear-relevant illusory correlations in different fears and anxiety disorders: A review of the literature.
abstract: Fearful individuals often overestimate the relationship between fear-relevant stimuli and aversive consequences. Such fear-relevant illusory correlations (ICs) might be involved in the maintenance of anxiety disorders. In this literature review, we found clear evidence that ICs are present and enhanced in fear of animals. We also revealed some evidence for ICs related to fear of flying, social anxiety, contamination fear, panic disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, but with considerably less clarity. Fear-relevant ICs seem to be best explained by both a priori expectancies and biased encoding of the experienced associations. Studies to date suggest that one important biased encoding process is the enhanced aversiveness/salience of fear-relevant outcomes. Future studies may improve insight by developing more reliable IC measures and testing the effect of encoding processes on treatment outcomes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Julian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wiemer
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology (Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology, and Psychotherapy), University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany; Center of Mental Health, Medical Faculty, University of Würzburg, Germany. Electronic address: pauli@psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pauli
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans
keywords: Anxiety; Covariation bias; Expectancy bias; Fear; Illusory correlations