Effects of safety behaviors on distress tolerance : an experimental investigation

This is the first study to investigate the effects of distress tolerance on safety behaviors through experimental manipulation of safety behaviors and the rationale of their use. This study hypothesized that: (1) relative to no safety behavior controls, subjects who are randomized to use safety behaviors will display poorer distress tolerance as measured by shorter immersion time (seconds) on a subsequent cold pressor challenge, (2) participants who are led to believe that the safety aid (liquid) will prevent circulation problems (threat-relevant rationale) will show increased distress tolerance (longer immersion time) in the first round but decreased distress tolerance (shorter immersion time) in the second round of the cold pressor compared to participants who used the safety aid without a threat-relevant rationale, because appraisals of threat increase when the safety behavior is removed, (3) individuals with low baseline distress tolerance will be more sensitive to the threat-relevant rationale safety behavior manipulation than those with high baseline distress tolerance. Therefore, individuals with low distress tolerance at baseline and who are assigned to use safety behaviors with a threat-relevant rationale will have a larger decline in distress tolerance (i.e. difference in immersion time) between the two challenges of the cold pressor, and (4) differences in threat appraisal between Challenge 1 (safety behaviors with threat-relevant rationale available) and Challenge 2 (no safety behaviors available) will mediate the effects on differences in distress tolerance (i.e. shorter immersion time) and emotional reactivity (i.e. negative affect) between the challenges. Inconsistent with our hypotheses, participants’ threat appraisals did not mediate the negative effects of safety behaviors on distress tolerance; the difference of immersion time was not significantly shorter during the second round of the cold pressor. Moreover, this mediation was not moderated by individuals’ levels of physical and emotional distress tolerance at baseline. Confirming previous findings, this study’s results suggest that people with low physical dispositional distress tolerance are doing worse overall when under distressing circumstances. The results also suggest that the influence of safety behaviors on dispositional distress tolerance may not impede the effectiveness of anxiety disorder treatment