Emily LaPlaca

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Cottrell, Catherine

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are often considered by psychologists as one of the most common and debilitating psychological disorders (Antony et al., 2009). Exposure therapy is commonly used to treat anxiety disorders, and significant improvements are often seen after even one session of exposure treatment (American Psychological Association, 2017). In the United States, fewer than half of individuals in need of mental health treatment receive care. Many barriers exist such as geographic region, stigma, cost, privacy concerns, and time constraints (Lattie et al., 2022). In order to make mental health services more accessible, digital mental health interventions are beginning to be researched and implemented. Virtual reality exposure therapy is one example of this type of treatment, which could make exposure therapy accessible. Research on virtual reality exposure therapy has shown positive results in reducing anxiety to feared stimuli (Gershon et al., 2002), but has mainly been compared to individuals receiving no treatment at all. Considering the current body of research, there is a gap that begs the question of the effectiveness of virtual reality exposure therapy compared directly to traditional, in person exposure therapy. The current study asked participants (N=290) to predict how anxious they would be in response to each of the ten most common fears being presented both in real life, and in virtual reality. The results found that participants predicted their anxiety levels would be significantly higher in response to a commonly feared stimulus being presented in real life compared to the same stimulus being presented in virtual reality. These results were consistent through all ten stimuli that were used in the study (e.g., spiders, heights, public speaking, etc). Since virtual reality exposure therapy has yet to be compared directly to traditional exposure therapy, it could be the case that perception of situations/stimuli and emotional reactions are significantly different, and therefore can not be directly compared or substituted with one another. It was also found that participants who were higher in the extraversion personality trait were more likely to be willing to use virtual reality as a setting for therapeutic interventions. These results warrant future research on this topic, and have implications for the future of this treatment and its eventual dissemination.

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