Cardiovascular activity in blood-injection-injury phobia during exposure: Evidence for diphasic response patterns?
Section snippets
Participants
Eighty participants between the ages of 18 and 50 were enrolled for a laboratory session of film viewing. Participants were recruited through flyers on university campus and community advertisements. BII-phobia recruitment targeted individuals that were “intensely fearful of seeing blood, injuries, or needles”, whereas recruitment of healthy controls targeted “healthy men and women to participate in a laboratory study investigating physiological responses to daily life experiences”. Of the
Overall emotional response to exposure
Psychological responses of BII-phobia participants versus healthy controls to film exposure protocol have been reported before (Ayala et al., 2010). Anxiety increased significantly in BII-phobia participants during exposure to the surgery film (M = 6.4, SD = 3.0) compared to neutral (M = 1.3, SD = 1.7) and anger (M = 3.5, SD = 2.9) films. No significant change in anxiety was observed in healthy controls during surgery (M = 2.0, SD = 2.7) compared to neutral (M = 0.7, SD = 1.1) and anger (M
Discussion
The presumed diphasic nature of cardiovascular responses in BII-phobia has been the dominant psychophysiological paradigm in past decades. Engel and Romano (1947) introduced the idea of two phases, which were interpreted as fight-flight followed by conservation-withdrawal. The latter was seen as dominated by parasympathetic discharge. Graham et al. (1961) viewed the diphasic response as the chief characteristic in vasovagal syncope. However, empirical support for diphasic responses has remained
Acknowledgments
We thank Jennifer Rosemore, Michelle Reyes, and Shawn White for their help with data reduction.
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