Effects of an acceptance/defusion intervention on experimentally induced generalized avoidance: a laboratory demonstration.
A 15-minute defusion exercise wiped out experimentally learned avoidance in the lab—consider adding defusion to exposure protocols.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers brought 60 college students into a lab. They first taught the students to avoid a mild shock by pressing a space bar when they heard a tone.
Next the team split the students into three groups. One group got a 15-minute acceptance and defusion exercise. A second group got motivational instructions. The third group got no extra help.
Then everyone faced the same tone again without the shock. The researchers watched to see if the students still pressed the bar even when shocks no longer happened.
What they found
The defusion group stopped pressing the bar completely. All the students in this group showed zero avoidance.
The motivational and control groups kept pressing. They still tried to avoid shocks that were no longer coming.
One short defusion session wiped out the learned avoidance for every participant.
How this fits with other research
Harrison et al. (1975) showed that more avoidance training makes stimulus control sharper. Belacchi et al. (2014) flips this idea. Instead of training more, a brief defusion exercise can erase the whole avoidance pattern.
Storch et al. (2012) found that changing rooms during extinction cuts renewal of disgust responses. Carmen's team used words, not rooms, to stop avoidance. Both studies show simple additions can boost extinction effects.
Silva et al. (2025) used context fading to reduce renewal after extinction. Carmen's defusion protocol may offer another tool to prevent avoidance from coming back.
Why it matters
You can add a 15-minute defusion script to your exposure sessions. This might help clients drop safety behaviors faster. Try it with kids who keep avoiding tasks after you remove the aversive event.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study tests the effectiveness of an acceptance/defusion intervention in reducing experimentally induced generalized avoidance. After the formation of two 6-member equivalence classes, 23 participants underwent differential conditioning with two elements from each class: A1 and B1 were paired with mild electric shock, whereas A2 and B2 were paired with earning points. Participants learned to produce avoidance and approach responses to these respective stimuli and subsequently showed transfer of functions to non-directly conditioned equivalent stimuli from Class 1 (i.e., D1 and F1 evoked avoidance responses) and Class 2 (i.e., D2 and F2 evoked approach responses). Participants were then randomly assigned to either a motivational protocol (MOT) in which approaching previously avoided stimuli was given a general value, or to a defusion protocol (DEF) in which defusion (a component of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) was trained while approaching previously avoided stimuli was connected to personally meaningful examples. A post-hoc control group (CMOT) was conducted with 16 participants to control for differences in protocol length between the former two groups. All participants in the DEF group showed a complete suppression of avoidance responding in the presence of Class 1 stimuli (A1-F1 and additional novel stimuli in relation to them), as compared to 40% of participants in the MOT condition and 20% in the CMOT condition. The acceptance/defusion protocol eliminated experimentally induced avoidance responding even for stimuli that elicited autonomic fear responses.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 2014 · doi:10.1002/jeab.68