An online spider game: Overcome your fear, exposure is near

One symbol always resulted in one coin (safe option); another symbol mostly resulted in a large reward (3 coins), but sometimes in a spider (risky option). Participants rated the digital spider on evoked fear, disgust, and distress. Spider fear was measured with the fear of spiders questionnaire (FSQ).

Avoidance was measured via symbol selection, self-reported avoidance, and a digital behavioural avoidance test, dBAT. Higher FSQ scores correlated with more self-reported spider-fear, -distress and -disgust, and larger dBAT-distances. Additionally, higher FSQ scores correlated with less risky- and more safe-selections.

Importantly, more risky selections resulted in a stronger decrease in self-reported spider-fear and -disgust, whereas safe selections increased these emotions. Future studies are necessary to test if this link between approach-avoidance behaviour and emotional changes holds for spider phobics and real spiders.