Cognition and agoraphobia: Bias in the interpretation of threat

Abstract

Foa and Kozak (1985, 1986) have proposed that agoraphobics are characterized by a fear structure in which information about physiological arousal is associated in memory with information about danger. Accordingly, agoraphobics should be more likely than normals to interpret ambiguous bodily stimuli as threatening. They are also expected to exaggerate the probability and cost of unpleasant events related to arousal more than of events unrelated to arousal. Three groups — untreated and treated agoraphobics, and normals — were administered three questionnaires designed to test these conjectures. Agoraphobics, but not normals, manifested the hypothesized cognitive biases. Moreover, these biases were greatly diminished in agoraphobics who had undergone cognitive-behavior therapy.