Remote, online assessment of avoidance learning

Avoidance is an adaptive response to actual or perceived threat. However, persistent avoidance despite low likelihood of threat can become maladaptive and prevent effective psychological treatment. To examine behavioural avoidance, in-person, lab-based threat learning paradigms are typically used with relatively small sample sizes. However, such methods pose issues when in-person testing is difficult. The aim of the current study was therefore to adapt a validated lab-based threat and avoidance conditioning paradigm into an online avoidance learning task to investigate threat expectancy and avoidance remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online fear and avoidance learning task was developed and administered to 119 participants who differed in the opportunity to avoid a safe stimulus. Fear and avoidance conditioning were successful and the opportunity to avoid a known safe stimulus increased threat expectancy and fear for the experimental group, relative to the control group.