Skin conductance responses to real and imagined snakes among avoidant and non-avoidant college students

Experiment I compared the extent to which, at the physiological level, behaviorally avoidant and non-avoidant Ss respond differently to in vivo exposure to a snake. Experiment II tested an hypothesis about possible confounding in the procedures of Experiment I. Experiment III was a replication of Experiment II except that an imagined snake was substituted for the real snake. The three experiments were designed to permit simultaneous comparisons involving the skin conductance reactions of avoidant and non-avoidant volunteer Ss to a snake and to a neutral stimulus. In Experiments II and III differential responsivity in the expected direction was found. These differences were discussed in connection with the methodology of snake-avoidance therapy analogues.