Thought-induced change in phobic beliefs: Sometimes it helps, sometimes it hurts

Abstract

Derived two predictions from Tesser's (1978) work on thought‐induced polarization. First, the longer individuals thought in a constrained manner about a phobic object, the more strongly they would believe that they were able to cope with the object. Second, the longer individuals thought in an unconstrained manner about a phobic object, the more strongly they would believe that they were unable to cope with the object. It was also predicted that, in both cases, the relationship between thought and belief change would be monotonic. These hypotheses were tested by randomly assigning phobic individuals (N = 20) to one of two treatment conditions: Constrained thought or unconstrained thought. Beliefs about extra‐laboratory behavior were used to assess the effects of treatment, and results supported all predictions.