Gender differences in avoidance and repetitive negative thinking following symptom provocation in men and women with spider phobia

Abstract

Objectives. Women's greater prevalence of anxiety disorders compared to men is widely assumed to be partly due to gender differences in cognitive and behavioural factors that perpetuate anxiety, such as repetitive negative thinking (RNT) and avoidance. However, past studies assessing this assumption have not controlled for gender differences in baseline symptom severity, the type of stressful life experiences against which RNT and avoidance are measured, or emotional reactivity to these experiences. Design. Using a two-group design, the present study controlled for these confounds by comparing avoidance and RNT in relation to a controlled symptom provocation task in spider phobic men and women with equivalent spider fear severity on the Fear of Spiders Questionnaire. Methods. Participants engaged in a behavioural approach test (BAT) involving a live spider, during which they were assessed for avoidance (physical proximity to the spider) and subjective distress. Two weeks later, participants reported on their levels of negative affect and RNT experienced during the preceding weeks in relation to the BAT. Results. Women exhibited greater avoidance and reported greater RNT than men, despite reporting comparable distress and negative affect. Gender remained a significant predictor of avoidance when accounting for distress and also remained a significant predictor of RNT when accounting for depressive symptoms and negative affect. Conclusions. These results provide in vivo evidence that heightened avoidance and RNT may perpetuate anxiety symptoms in women independently of gender differences in symptom severity, daily experiences, or emotional reactivity. Practitioner Points Following symptom provocation, men and women with spider phobia differ in cognitive and behavioural coping responses. Women exhibit greater avoidance and repetitive negative thinking than men, and these differences are not attributable to gender differences in symptom severity or emotional reactivity. These findings provide novel evidence for gender differences in maintaining factors that perpetuate anxiety disorders whilst accounting for confounding factors present in prior research.

Specificity of spiders among fear- and disgust-eliciting arthropods: Spiders are special, but phobics not so much

“…This held true for ratings in both fear and disgust (see Fig 4 ). Although these results are generally in line with results of other researchers (negative emotions elicited by spiders [ 21 , 32 , 58 , 60 , 99 – 101 ]; gender differences [ 102 ]), two interesting points can be discussed.…”

The Arab COVID‐19 Anxiety Syndrome Scale (C‐19ASS): COVID‐19 anxiety syndrome and psychological symptoms in the Saudi Arabian population

“…Exploring gender differences related to C-19ASS, the findings of the present study showed that females had higher levels of C-19ASS-Avoidance than males. An explanation for this result may lie with previous results, which showed that females are more likely to engage in heightened avoidance than males (Graham et al, 2020). This finding is consistent with previous evidence suggesting that females may show more severe COVID-19 anxiety syndrome than males (Akbari et al, 2022;Mansueto et al, 2022).…”

Development and initial validation of an open-access online Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT) for spider fear.

“…This gender distribution is unsurprising given the higher prevalence of anxiety disorders and spider fear among women (Arrindell, 2000;McLean & Anderson, 2009). However, the gender imbalance may limit the generalizability of our results to the general population, which is supported by evidence for different response patterns in men and women (Graham et al, 2020). Moreover, our sample consisted of mostly White individuals, further limiting the generalizability to different ethnicities (we do, e.g., not know if the Caucasian hand displayed in vBATon would influence the perceptions of individuals with different ethnicities; in future versions of vBATon, an option to change the skin tone of the hand may be a worthwhile addition).…”