Intolerance of uncertainty and reinstatement

The return of fear model of reinstatement is an understudied phenomenon that may shed some light on the mechanisms of clinical relapse seen in anxiety disorders. Previous studies have found altered threat responding during reinstatement phases of classical threat conditioning tasks connected to Intolerance of uncertainty (IU), an emerging transdiagnostic feature seen in various clinical disorders. This study recruited 69 participants (33 females, 33 males, and 3 non-binaries) aged between 18 and 55 years to explore the possible impact that IU, and other measures of individual difference, may have on reinstatement effects using an online classical conditioning task. Participants completed questionnaires on IU, distress tolerance (DT), neuroticism, and depression, anxiety, and stress, followed by a threat conditioning task which utilised the face of a fearful woman, paired with a fearful female scream as the unconditioned stimulus (US). None of the measures of individual difference moderated the relationship between extinction learning and reinstatement, however DT total, absorption, and regulation significantly predicted reinstatement. The task successfully facilitated differential threat conditioning and reinstatement which supports the feasibility of online associative learning tasks. Results from this study could help to gain further understanding of reinstatement, and therefore further the understanding of clinical relapse.